10 ms·

I'm still not sure how this company makes money or how they make the theaters money. So they sell tickets for way under what they cost, they take their cut and

• landonxjames 9y ago
  I've always heard that theaters make the majority of their profit on everything besides the ticket since most of that goes back to the distributors/studios. So I would imagine more butts in seats == more overpriced popcorn sold and potentially more profit.
• wmeredith 9y ago
  Putting butts in seats is a value add. It sells overpriced snacks, which has been the actual profit center for theaters for a couple decades now.
• beisner 9y ago
  Butts in seats is a huge value add if those butts are buying concessions.
  • cyberpunk0 9y ago
    What the hell buys concessions in 2017? I don't know a single person throughout my entire life who doesn't just bringing something in from outside.
    • Touche 9y ago
      You don't have to personally know someone who does it to see people standing in lines at the concession when you walk in. I don't know how old you are, but at a certain point sneaking things into the theater is something you grow out of.
      • chrisseaton 9y ago
        > but at a certain point sneaking things into the theater is something you grow out of Why do you need to sneak anything in though? Do cinemas care about people taking in their own food and drinks? Is it in their terms and conditions of sale that you cannot do that? If it is then it isn't enforced. I don't think I even see let alone talk to any members of staff when I go to the cinema these days - it's all automated ticket machines and then you just go into the theatre for your film. There's nobody to enforce it even if they were going to. People talk online like they're master criminals for sneaking in a packet of sweets but really I don't think anyone even remotely cares.
        • cmiles74 9y ago
          At the Cinermarks near me (there are two), they always have one or two people tearing tickets as people walk in. These people will make you throw away food or candy, etc. if you try to bring them into the theater. I've had conversations with them about coffee as they don't sell it there but they have been adamant about preventing me from bringing it in.
          • chrisseaton 9y ago
            Wow I believe you, but that's insane and nothing like I've ever seen or heard myself. Maybe it varies by country.
            • notheguyouthink 9y ago
              It goes even further than that - some theaters will bag check. If you have a purse / bag, they make you open it and they'll shine a flashlight in, etc. No pat-downs, thankfully lol.
              • cmiles74 9y ago
                Now I feel like chrisseaton; I believe you, but that is insane! I don't know how I'd feel if they were checking my bag _for candy_... That might push me to stop seeing movies in theaters, honestly.
    • spbaar 9y ago
      From averaging the people who buy popcorn and a drink and those who buy nothing and those in between, I'd say the average person buys an icee, which is not a bad markup
    • always_good 9y ago
      You're like HN comment I saw last weekend that didn't believe people saw iPhones as status symbols anymore because he didn't see them that way. But while we're sharing anecdotes, I've never heard of someone sneaking in a large-gulp Coke and a bucket of popcorn, for one. -- The two things people seem to unanimously be holding in their arms as they enter the movie.
      • rev_null 9y ago
        I once saw a person smuggle in a small bag of microwave popcorn in his hat. Except he had overcooked it and it smelled terrible.
        • wccrawford 9y ago
          My family always "smuggled in" popcorn and snacks. Especially the candy. We'd have bought it at the theatre for a small markup, but the prices were just insane. Now, I simply don't buy anything at the concession stand at all. Years of eating poorly have taken their toll and I'm paying the price.
    • fps 9y ago
      The concession "stands" in theaters in my area (Boston) all sell hot food and alcohol[0,1] these days, because the traditional popcorn, 1/2 gallon of soda and raisinettes weren't selling to most people anymore. I think people are much less likely to sneak in a burger, truffle fries and 3 martinis. 0: https://www.amctheatres.com/food-and-drink/dine-in/full-service https://www.amctheatres.com/food-and-drink/dine-in/full-serv... 1: https://www.showcasecinemas.com/dining https://www.showcasecinemas.com/dining
    • dumbfounder 9y ago
      A lot of the theaters around DC now sell booze. What took them so long?
• thefreeman 9y ago
  The only thing I can think is that they assume they will make the money back in concessions. That plus the "gym membership" situation where you keep it because you want to know you have it but often go long periods of time without using it.
• berdon 9y ago
  I had assumed the theater wasn't a part of the exchange and that MoviePass is merely making money on the percentage of people that don't go to 1/2 movies in a month. If too many people do, they can up the price per month. With this approach, movie theaters don't know what's happening, can't prevent it (it's a normal ticket purchase), and, most importantly, don't care because they're still filling seats and getting concession monies.
  • londons_explore 9y ago
    Why do AMC care so much then? Perhaps they're worried that people will switch to movie pass, and then Movie pass will fail in a few years, and those subscribers will then stop going to the cinema entirely?
    • Kihashi 9y ago
      Seems to be that they are concerned that: 1. If MoviePass doesn't work, AMC's customer service people will get yelled at for something outside of their control. This damages AMC's brand and wastes the time of their CS. 2. People will get used to MoviePass and then it will go bankrupt. This will reduce their likelihood to attend movies because they are now no longer used to paying the high prices set by studios.
• perfmode 9y ago
  IMHO, it looks like a data play.
  • cmiles74 9y ago
    I do think that they will have compelling data to sell. They will have a lot of demographic information that the theaters don't have access to (age, distance traveled to theater, some income information, etc.) as well as what movie and what time. I'm not sure how much data the theaters can gather from credit card ticket purchases, I would expect they glean nearly no data at all from cash purchases. I suspect they are trying to fill in these blanks with the goofy phone apps they are aggressively pushing. In my opinion, MoviePass can likely sell a lot of this data back to to the companies that produce the films as well as the theater chains themselves.
• shawndellysse 9y ago
  > they sell tickets for way under what they cost, they take their cut and pass it on to the theater That's not how it works. You select a specific movie in a specific theater in their app, it loads the exact amount on to the moviepass mastercard, and then you purchase the ticket with the mastercard. The theater gets the full ticket price. They claim they're going to be harvesting the data from their customers and sell that to make a profit. I personally think it's a red herring, if I were in their shoes I'd aggressively undercut the price, secure a dominant market position, and then place pressure on chains to play ball, or raise the price of the subscription in small increments ala Netflix. Honestly, it'll probably be a combination of both. This all can sound a bit nefarious but at the same time I don't see the movie theater industry surviving without some sort of subscription model such as this. AMC, Regal, and Cinemark are squandering their market dominance by not implementing some sort of similar plan for their own specific chain (cinemark's $8.99/mo plan isn't even comprable).
  • delinka 9y ago
    "...I'd aggressively undercut the price" Aren't they? For $10/mo, I can go see one movie a day, no additional cost to me. And it's not the theater chains that need convincing- it's the studios. The theaters just aren't permitted to take any sizable percentage of the ticket price. If anything, "butts in seats" shows demand. If demand drives prices, then the studios think the prices can go up because demand is up. If MoviePass's plan is to profit from data, I personally don't have faith in their future.
    • shawndellysse 9y ago
      I wrote that response quickly, but that's what I was saying: > If I were in their shoes, I'd [do what they're doing right now and] agressively undercut the price... I also agree, if they're telling the truth that their plan is to make their earnings off the data, yes I don't have faith either. I'm saying, if they managed to pull a miracle and get a majority of the movie-going public on to movie pass, they could be in a position to then negotiate with the theaters (and other forces down the line) to strong-arm their way into profitability. Even if it's just "oh hey pay us and we'll feature your theatre to our users in the area". This is all conjecture, arm-chair theory.
• solatic 9y ago
  Consumer psychology. Instead of $10 a month think of it as $120 a year. If a theater charges $12 a ticket (just to pull a round yet realistic number that means less than a movie a month at $10/month) then an annualized MoviePass subscription breaks even at 10 tickets per year. As somebody who likes to go to the movies, how many times did you go to a theater this year, really? Six, seven times maybe? Maybe once in the late winter or spring, two or three times in the summer, once in the fall, whatever Star Wars movie comes out in the winter, maybe another time with your family during the holidays? The truth is that people don't really change their media consumption habits, in aggregate, when they're presented with unlimited subscriptions. People just like to feel like they could get anything they want and that they don't have to look at the price tag anymore, but they don't actually consume more in aggregate. Sure, you get some binge subscribers who exploit the system, but they're not enough to bring down the entire enterprise. If the industry could transition from $10/album to $10/month unlimited music subscriptions, from $10 eBooks to $10/month Kindle Unlimited eBook subscriptions, from $10 DVDs (actually, usually more than that) to $10/month Netflix subscriptions, then why can't the industry support a transition from $10 movie tickets to $10/month theater subscriptions?
  • adjkant 9y ago
    For me, I certainly have changed my habits, because if movies are free, I am willing to see a lot more of them. Most movies aren't worth seeing in theatres for the previous price point with the exceptions you more or less listed. The lower one makes it worth it for me. I've seen 13 movies in the past 4 months. I would have seen maybe 5 or less otherwise. At my ticket price (which is actually around $12 a ticket), even without changing my habits, I would have still saved money at 4. I know too many college students like myself thriving off this.
    • solatic 9y ago
      I mean, like I said, it's not that exploitation won't occur, it's that the exploitation will be too sporadic to make a meaningful difference in overall cash flow. That MoviePass isn't profitable right now isn't so much because exploitation is more widespread than the MoviePass founders expected, and more because it's still new enough that most subscribers are going through their initial binges before they'll settle into their normative consumption habits. The average American adult goes to some five movies per year [0]. Increasing that to your new rate of consumption of roughly once per week - more than fifty movies per year - would be an order of magnitude. Even if attendance increased only to the break-even point, it would basically double attendance. So either MoviePass has no or little affect on aggregate movie attendance, in which case they make money hand-over-fist for extracting twice the money from aggregate subscribers for the same amount of aggregate product, or MoviePass has a strong positive affect on attendance, in which case there are other avenues for profits, as other people have mentioned - data mining, concessions, etc. [0] https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/media-and-entertainment-39161 https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/media-and-enterta...
• empath75 9y ago
  This is literally just a 'money in a box' subscription. You're paying $10 a month for $20+ a month. Of course subscriptions are going through the roof. It's free money. I think if you wanted to make a blue apron level unicorn, just selling a subscription for a $20 bill in an envelope every month for $10/month would give you a better user growth story with lower churn rates and customer acquisition costs than this.
  • daodedickinson 9y ago
    You just gotta make sure you get the $20 from someone you detest and then you have $10 profit.
• moheeb 9y ago
  If I owned a candy company I'd invest in this company big time!
• imgabe 9y ago
  I've been thinking of getting this. I typically go to the movies when they're otherwise empty or at least not very crowded, weekday afternoons or early shows on the weekend. For the theater this would otherwise be an empty, wasted seat. Something is bound to be better than nothing. Outside of Friday/Saturday night, shows are pretty unlikely to be sold out. Plus, if you're at the theater, you'll buy popcorn, candy, and drinks, which is where the actual theater makes most of their money.