Weekday Numbers [June 3-6, 2024] | Thursday | 1.53M GARFIELD | IF | 0.73M FURIOSA | APES

[kayumanggi]

 

[kayumanggi]

 

[Eric is Quiet]

lmao at Garfield getting Elemental legs out of the blue. Obviously it won't go as high as that movie, but this really might get to 100M on the basis that there is just nothing for kids to watch until Inside Out 2.

[Jerri Blank-Diggler]

22 hours ago, Insomnia said:

Yup. Price is a huge issue. From what I can tell the interest in going to movies is still there from a decently large group of people but the price is just turning them away most times. I'm a massive movie goer and even I have gotten so much more picky about what I go see. It shouldn't be like that. I hate saying to myself "I'll wait for that on streaming". 

 

11 hours ago, Ryan Reynolds said:

studios/theaters are pricing out middle class families , some may be thriving in this economy, but have not seen this discrepancy in 20+ years

 

18 hours ago, harry713 said:

I have to say A-List really has been the ONLY reason my husband and I go to the movies as frequently as we do now. We're far less picky since it eliminates the decision of "do I want to spend money seeing this?" I suppose we're gambling that there will be a consistent schedule of quality content for us to book each week, but so far we've seen 27 films this year for $125 (5 months of $25/mo membership), so we've definitely gotten our money's worth. We've also been to a handful of the AMC Screen Unseen mystery movies they have on Monday nights and watched a number of films in the theater we otherwise wouldn't have. If this type of moviegoing were around when I was in my teens and 20's I would have lived at the theater. 

 

Has anyone watched the "MoviePass MovieCrash" documentary on MAX/HBO? It seems to be germane to this discussion because it details the huge disruption and inflation in attendance MoviePass caused for a couple of years in the late 2010s by making movie attendance incredibly cheap. It traces the early MoviePass founders' attempts to find a new model that would encourage movie attendance (they started around 2011, but they really got going after 2015, and the company was really humming by 2017). The documentary talks about how MoviePass played a significant role in driving up theatrical attendance dramatically in the late 2010s by subsidizing ticket prices -- albeit at a price point that was unsustainable for the company. There were more than 300,000 active MoviePass holders by 2017/8, and it was growing past half-a-million before it got so large the company could not keep up with printing the MoviePass debit cards it gave to members. Many MoviePass holders talked about going to multiple movies a week during those years. Some would dip in for 30 minutes of a film one day, catch another hour of it another day, then back to finish it on a third day, etc., each time logging in a full ticket attendance. The company also worked for a while with AMC in what was clearly the antecedent of AMC's A-List subscription today.

 

Unfortunately the company got taken over by fast-talking business charlatans at the time of its rise, the dedicated founders got jettisoned when they too vehemently pointed out that MoviePass' '$9.99/month for unlimited films at ALL theaters' model was unsustainable, and the company ultimately filed bankruptcy by 2020 after losing jaw-dropping millions upon millions of dollars even as the later leaders claimed until almost the end that it was about to break even. (Those business charlatans are now awaiting trial for business fraud-related charges.)

 

But wow, what a story about how MoviePass almost had it all (cue the Whitney song) and almost created a functioning subscription system that worked across all theaters. If they had found a more reasonable price & max attendance model (probably around where AMC A-List is now) and had been able to form alliances with studios/theater owners, they could have created a model for sustained high movie attendance and commitment. Interestingly one of the inspiring original founders bought back the company at auction and is trying to make a go of it again, his way.

 

This history made me wonder how much MoviePass inflated attendance numbers in relevant periods of the late 2010s, so when trackers look back at pre-COVID film attendance during those years, was that film market artificially inflated, at least in 2017-2018/9 from all the MoviePass holders and their extra heavy theater attendance?

Edited June 6 by Jerri Blank-Diggler
clarified based on data given

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

2 hours ago, Jerri Blank-Diggler said:

 

 

 

Has anyone watched the "MoviePass MovieCrash" documentary on MAX/HBO? It seems to be germane to this discussion because it details the huge disruption and inflation in attendance MoviePass caused for at least 3-4 years in the late 2010s by making movie attendance incredibly cheap. It traces the early MoviePass founders' attempts to find a new model that would encourage movie attendance (they started around 2011, but they really got going after 2015, and the company was really humming by 2017). The documentary talks about how MoviePass played a significant role in driving up theatrical attendance dramatically in the late 2010s by subsidizing ticket prices -- albeit at a price point that was unsustainable for the company. There were more than 300,000 active MoviePass holders by 2017/8, and it was growing past half-a-million before it got so large the company could not keep up with printing the MoviePass debit cards it gave to members. Many MoviePass holders talked about going to multiple movies a week during those years. Some would dip in for 30 minutes of a film one day, catch another hour of it another day, then back to finish it on a third day, etc., each time logging in a full ticket attendance. The company also worked for a while with AMC in what was clearly the antecedent of AMC's A-List subscription today.

 

Unfortunately the company got taken over by fast-talking business charlatans at the time of its rise, the dedicated founders got jettisoned when they too vehemently pointed out that MoviePass' '$9.99/month for unlimited films at ALL theaters' model was unsustainable, and the company ultimately crashed by 2020 after losing jaw-dropping millions upon millions of dollars even as the later leaders claimed until almost the end that it was about to break even. (Those business charlatans are now awaiting trial for business fraud-related charges.)

 

But wow, what a story about how MoviePass almost had it all (cue the Whitney song) and almost created a functioning subscription system that worked across all theaters. If they had found a more reasonable price & max attendance model (probably around where AMC A-List is now) and had been able to form alliances with studios/theater owners, they could have created a model for sustained high movie attendance and commitment. Interestingly one of the inspiring original founders bought back the company at auction and is trying to make a go of it again, his way.

 

This history made me wonder how much MoviePass inflated attendance numbers in the late 2010s, so when trackers look back at pre-COVID film attendance during those years, was that film market artificially inflated, at least in 2018-2019 from all the MoviePass holders and their extra heavy theater attendance?

The MoviePass free for all lasted less than 12 months, from when they Instituted the $9.95/month plan in mid-August 2017 to June/July 2018, when they started with peak pricing surcharges and not selling tickets through the app for the top new movies (Mission: Impossible – Fallout was one). They had a lot of "system errors" when they were especially broke.

 

Membership plummeted pretty quickly once all the shenanigans started (changing passwords on top users, switching members from annual to monthly memberships, limiting movie selection) and they were not an "unlimited" service anymore well before they formally went out of business. I remember box office fans already being nostalgic for the good old days of MoviePass by the time Endgame came out: how much more could it have made with MoviePass at full strength?

 

They released ticket sales info in February 2018 and by sheer volume blockbusters sold the most tickets. Proportionately smaller awards movies from 2017 got a bigger boost, though it wasn't the majority of their attendance.

 

*

 

AMC Stubs keeps offering more and more points to lure members back to theaters (every 5,000 points is a $5 reward). There were always offers on movies here or there, but they've really ramped up in the past month or so. Now they're throwing out points just because, without even having to buy a ticket or concessions first. Anyone else's local theater making desperate moves lately?

 

Edited June 6 by BoxOfficeFangrl

[filmlover]

I, for one, will always be grateful to MoviePass for all the "free" movies I got to see through them between Q4 2017 through early summer 2018. 

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

 

[ChipDerby]

2 minutes ago, ListenHunnyUrOver said:

 

 

They were bought out not too long ago by a Private Equity firm. So it's not surprising this happened.

[kayumanggi]

Still over a million.

[kayumanggi]

100M, no?

[Mojoguy]

6 minutes ago, kayumanggi said:

Still over a million.

Summer weekdays kicking in, shame that Apes didn't have a better release date in June.

[kayumanggi]

 

[babz06]

34 minutes ago, kayumanggi said:

100M, no?

Could get close but its gonna lose a bunch of theaters starting this weekend. 

[kayumanggi]

 

[kayumanggi]

 

[Krissykins]

56 minutes ago, kayumanggi said:

 

Finally, 2 horror films over $30m in 2024. Yeesh. Great legs for this film despite the quality. 
 

5 hours ago, Eric Burnett said:

lmao at Garfield getting Elemental legs out of the blue. Obviously it won't go as high as that movie, but this really might get to 100M on the basis that there is just nothing for kids to watch until Inside Out 2.

well, IF too. 

[Joyous Legion]

On 4/30/2024 at 6:00 PM, CJohn said:

The Fall Guy - 27/90 (under 100M, wtf is going on)

Apes - 45/145 (if good) 39/105 (if bad)

IF - 48/165

Furiosa - 31/38/100

Garfield - 28/38/110

 

RIP Cinemas

So how are things actually turning out relative to this May scenario:

TFG 28/95 (bang on)

Apes 58/170

IF 34/120

furiosa 26/32/75

garf 24/31/100

 

Pretty good forecast 

Edited June 6 by Legion Again

[HummingLemon496]

2 hours ago, Legion Again said:

So how are things actually turning out relative to this May scenario:

TFG 28/95 (bang on)

Apes 58/170

IF 34/120

furiosa 26/32/75

garf 24/31/100

 

Pretty good forecast 

Let's just add DP3 for fun

 

180/470?

[Justin]

2 hours ago, Legion Again said:

So how are things actually turning out relative to this May scenario:

TFG 28/95 (bang on)

Apes 58/170

IF 34/120

furiosa 26/32/75

garf 24/31/100

 

Pretty good forecast 

I doubt the Fall guy will hit 95 million. It only made 4 million last week and with bad boys coming out this week, it’s gonna take a hit. The highest I can see it reach is 90 million 

[cannastop]

6 hours ago, ChipDerby said:

 

They were bought out not too long ago by a Private Equity firm. So it's not surprising this happened.

It was a franchisee who went bankrupt.