10 ms·

AMC unveils answer to MoviePass

79 points by gandutraveler 8y ago

crooked-v 8y ago
The key bits: > On Tuesday, the theater chain will begin offering guests the chance to see up to three movies per week for the monthly fee of $19.95. > However, AMC’s program offers some features that MoviePass has not matched. Namely, customers can see movies in premium formats such as IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and RealD. MoviePass can only be used for 2D films. > The exhibitor said that subscribers will not be able to carryover movies from week to week if they see fewer than three. Unlike MoviePass, however, they can even see all three movies on the same day, and they can watch movies they have previously seen. Guests can also reserve tickets in advance.
- ghaff 8y ago
  None of the articles are explicit but I assume that the subscription can only be used for one ticket at a time; i.e. you can't see one movie per week with 2 guests.
  - e1ven 8y ago
    In their FAQ (https://www.amctheatres.com/faqs/alist https://www.amctheatres.com/faqs/alist) it says that only the subscription holder can use the tickets. They check for a photo id on check-in.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      That's what I figured. The limit seems pretty sensible. Most people won't hit it most of the time, even if they're pretty heavy movie watchers, but it probably prevents usage that's really unprofitable.
- heyheyhey 8y ago
  > Guests can also reserve tickets in advance. This is a big plus over MoviePass. At my local theater, all the good seats are sold out days in advance so MoviePass is useless until a week after the movie's launch.
456hdsaq234g 8y ago
Also important: MoviePass parent, Helios and Matheson’s. Stock was trading at $38.86 a share in October 2017. $0.44 today. Yeaaah moviepass is screwed (I am a subscriber who likes the product but understand it is completely unsustainable).
- mikestew 8y ago
  understand it is completely unsustainable I think everyone knows it's unsustainable. AMC even specifically called that out by announcing that their pricing was "a sustainable pricing model". Not that that was directed at any company in particular. cough
- rory096 8y ago
  For some additional context, HMNY was at $2.50 in September 2017.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
kakarot 8y ago
I don't spend $240 a year at the theatre and I have no intention of starting now. If this is the best AMC can do while keeping a margin, then we might be in trouble.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I'm not sure why "we might be in trouble." I'm certainly not the target for this. I maybe go out to one or two movies a year and cost really doesn't have anything to do with it. Pretty much any subscription plan has to be priced for fairly heavy users--and there are people for whom going out to a movie a week is pretty common. You probably don't subscribe to HBO if you flip it on once a month (though admittedly that sometimes seems to be the case for me).
- nightski 8y ago
  That's even just for a single person in the household! If my significant other & I wanted to do this it would be $480/year on movies. That is insane, we generally spend well under $100. I like Marcus theatres' $5 Tuesday Movie night. It's unrestricted and you can go to brand new releases for $5 / ticket. It's really the only way we go to the theater now.
  - giobox 8y ago
    > It's unrestricted and you can go to brand new releases for $5 / ticket Except that you can only go on a Tuesday night. A pretty clear restriction. FWIW, in many European countries similar services operate very successfully for approximately around the $20 per month park. If it's not suitable for you personally, don't buy it, but it's clearly workable for a lot of people. For me this would work out ok with just two movie visits a month.
    - nightski 8y ago
      I meant unrestricted in content (New releases, stadium seating, 3D, etc...) as I thought I was being pretty up front with the day restriction. It's not a service either. You can just go if you feel like it. But hey if someone feels like they get $480/year of value out of the movies then do not let me persuade you otherwise! I subscribe to plenty of services.
tehwebguy 8y ago
We liked MoviePass (pretty sure I even posted about it here). Then the CEO went on an idiotic rampage about people “gaming the system” and we got caught in the crossfire. We used it about 1.5 x per month and loved it. Something came up one night and we couldn’t see the movie we got tickets for. Then they changed to the once-per-film policy, retroactively, meaning we could no longer rebook the movie we missed. I gave their awful customer service 4 attempts at fixing it via the app CS and via Twitter DMs. Oh well! Unlike some here I think they have a big opportunity— yes it’s built in another industry’s back but if they do it right they can end up with their own special events or even buy out distressed theaters and operate independently. Think Netflix moving from licensing to O&O content. Seems like they won’t make it that far though, subscribing to tickets in 2018 isn’t the same barrier of entry as fast HD streaming in 2008 or whenever Netflix nailed it down.
- samatman 8y ago
  The "Net" in Netflix started as a site where you could rent DVDs, a service that, astonishingly, is still offered. That was the barrier to entry: they had a customer base already paying them for content. MoviePass has no comparable moat.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Why astonishingly? Not everything is available on streaming. Though, unfortunately, having driven all the local DVD rental places out of business, Netflix has been letting their back DVD catalog rot to the point that I'll probably drop my legacy DVD subscription.
  - Reedx 8y ago
    It's interesting how incredibly disruptive that was, yet relatively short-lived as the dominant model. It was a good move that they didn't name it DVDFlix or MoviesByMail!
    - malloreon 8y ago
      I vaguely recall reading somewhere that Reed Hastings knew in 1999 that streaming would be a thing and that physical media rentals were a stopgap.
mikestew 8y ago
Ouch. MoviePass' parent company was already down 30% this morning on news that they want to do a reverse split. Then 20 minutes later AMC lets this loose. I can't imagine that it was coincidence.
- rory096 8y ago
  HMNY was up 26.7% yesterday, all in the last half hour of trading. It's now down about 8% (or 3¢) on Monday's close.
pkaye 8y ago
I don't find enough good movies in the theatres that warrants paying for a subscription plan.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  Personally, I feel the same way. Never really did enjoy the cinema experience, maybe seeing one or two movies per year, and as we head deeper into a world packed with $FRANCHISE films, I end up having less and less major releases to care about. One of the folks at work has the MoviePass subscription, and while he does like going to the movies it sounds like he ends up going a lot just because he has it. To the folks that have MoviePass: Were y'all already going to the movies frequently, or do you end up going more because of MoviePass?
  - 456hdsaq234g 8y ago
    Went to cinema less than once a year without moviepass. Now maybe once a month?
    - pkaye 8y ago
      If you go once a month do you save money with the moviepass? I usually get discounted tickets from Costco when I want to watch.
      - mieseratte 8y ago
        Not all markets have MoviePass and CostCo. I grew up in the wealthiest county in my state, and we still didn't have a CostCo, but we had plenty of theaters.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  I agree with you! It's been 6 years since I've been to the movies.
gringoDan 8y ago
I always thought this is how this model would play out. MoviePass provided proof of concept, but the theaters have no reason to play ball and enter a revenue-sharing partnership with MoviePass when they can just launch their own competing product. AMC will make up for discounted ticket sales in concessions. Once you get people into the theater, there are a lot of up-charge opportunities. Food & drinks (and alcohol if they can get a liquor license) make up most of theaters' profit. I assume the UX will be better than MoviePass as well since ticketing should be fully integrated - no need to physically go to the theater to purchase tickets, find out that tickets for the movie you'd like to see are sold out, swipe a different credit card, not be able to use the theater's rewards program, upload your ticket stub to the app...when you think about it the UX for MoviePass is actually pretty awful. Doubt many people are seeing more than 3 movies a week anyways on MoviePass, and several subscribers I know also pay for IMAX movies. For them it's a no-brainer to pay $10 more per month to see (effectively) unlimited IMAX films.
- rhino369 8y ago
  AMC also has a good relationship with movie distributors, who are the biggest barrier to unlimited movie passes. AMC can neogicate a revenue sharing model with the distributors, like Spotify does. I’m guessing if a customer sees 15 movies in a month for 20 bucks, AMC isn’t paying the distributors for 15 regular viewings. Probably more like (20 / X viewings) * (1 - margin). MoviePass cannot do that because threaters are middle men in their model.
jccalhoun 8y ago
The only theater in my town is an AMC "Classic" which means they don't have Imax, or Dolby Cinema and I don't care about 3d so I think I'll stay with Moviepass as long as AMC accepts it.
jedberg 8y ago
> MoviePass’s business model is controversial. ... It believes that the data it collects on consumer behavior will be so powerful that it will find alternative ways to make money. They also shakedown local theaters. This happened right near me. They told the theater that they want 50% of the concessions sales. The theater said no, so Moviepass stopped supporting that theater. The theater lost so many concession sales from Moviepass customers going elsewhere that they relented and agreed to their 50% commission.
- koolba 8y ago
  How do they compute their 50%? Do the concessions have to bought using the MoviePass charge card or do they audit the books somehow and take 50% of all concessions? If it's 50% of everything that sounds like a true shakedown!
  - lgregg 8y ago
    I doubt they use the charge card because the main reason they have the ticket verification feature was implemented because users would buy things in addition to their tickets. They basically have you take a picture of your ticket and use mechanical turk to verify.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- AFNobody 8y ago
  If a theater accepts a 50% shakedown on concessions it makes one wonder if all theaters are that desperate to fill seats these days.
  - stevesearer 8y ago
    It is more that if people have the option of seeing a movie at a theater who accepts MoviePass vs a theater that doesn't accept MoviePass, they are likely to select the former. So while they might not have been desperate before, being cut off from basically all MoviePass subscribers would not be good for business.
scarface74 8y ago
This is not a bad deal. I could never get my dad who is a frequent movie goer to deal with the complexity of Movie Pass. But this he would go for. If you see two movies in a month you would break even - even if it’s not a movie you would pay money to see. My wife an I look at the movies as either worth paying full price, a “Plex Original”, or not worth even taking the time to wait for it to “fall off the back of a truck”. We might go out and see our Plex Originals. I would probably buy her the pass at least because she doesn’t work during the Summer and she would see more movies between both our son and the two of us. If you see even one IMAX 3D movie it’s worth the cost and unlike Movie Pass, we can order online and reserve seating in advance.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Yeah, it seems pretty reasonable if this chain is convenient for you. I don't have theaters convenient for me so I don't tend to go out and would mostly rather watch at home anyway. But going to a few movies a month is hardly in compulsive movie viewing territory and a lot of people prefer to go to the theater for various reasons. I'd be curious how much AMC thinks they'll make on the actual pass and how much on add-on business (subscriber bringing a guest, food & beverage).
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I didn’t think about the subscriber bringing a guest. Most people don’t go to the movies alone.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Exactly. So if I'm a subscriber who goes to a lot of movies and don't have a specific partner who always goes with me, I'll be inclined to drag along various friends who might not otherwise have paid for a ticket and gone to the theater.
AustinGrandt 8y ago
Been a MoviePass subscriber for a long time (back when it was $30+) and I am still a big fan, but this offering has me honestly thinking about switching. I already pay for AMC stubs and go to AMC the majority of the time. Combined with being able to book beforehand, go to premieres, and see the 1 or 2 movies in IMAX that I want to each year this could be good. Only drawback is AMC's pass not having the flexibility/number of theater's with MoviePass, especially for more indie theaters where I live. Curious to see how MoviePass responds (if at all)
ksec 8y ago
I am naturally going to assume people will be uneasy with AMC having their data compared to MoviePass since they are now owned by Chinese?
- magic_beans 8y ago
  That might be a concern for people on HN but very likely not for the population at large.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  "This guy likes comic book movies" seems like a pretty minimal data point. China can have that info on me, if they really want to pay for it.
15charlimit 8y ago
Nobody wants a dozen different "movie subscriptions" just like nobody wants a dozen different "streaming service" subscriptions. The value of the early movers/original services is that they gave access to EVERYTHING (or nearly everything) with a single login/payment. Whatever value was originally generated by the first service is quickly lost as soon as everyone and their dog gets greedy, spins up their own special snowflake version of (service), and pulls their content out of the original service. This forces consumers to choose between signing up & paying for a dozen different services, or canceling everything and simply going back to the convenience & ease of piracy, which, incidentally, makes everything from everywhere available in a single location (value!).
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  And yet, I have both a Netflix and a Hulu subscription, and we get some access to Amazon's video selection via Prime.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    And yet, two (maybe two and a half) isn't the "dozen" the grandparent post is discussing. There's room for a couple services with good content libraries. I don't know that there's room for each major media company to have their own. I've personally opted to skip the new Star Trek series because I have no interest in a CBS-specific streaming service.
    - pavel_lishin 8y ago
      Same, but there aren't that many large movie theater companies. AMC competing against a third-party "shitload of movies" provider isn't diluting the pool too much.
  - 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago
    Its not fragmented enough, and prices are still dirt cheap. AV subscriptions are 20-50 dollars per month.
- 8y ago
joshwa 8y ago
> Since 2002, ticket prices have increased by 54%, while ticket sales have fallen 22%. The movie-theater industry seems to make it seem like the former is a reaction to the latter, but it's probably the opposite. Wouldn't the rational economic reaction to falling ticket sales be to reduce prices?
- kemitche 8y ago
  It's rational only if you expect that lowering prices would result in enough additional volume to increase profits. If you can boost your prices by 50% and only lose 20% of your sales, that seems like a win in terms of net profit.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Especially when there are so many other forces that probably are causing people to go to movies less. Other entertainment options (no streaming in 2002). Bigger/better TVs in many homes. Honestly, you could tell me I could go to a local movie theater for free and it wouldn't change my behavior (to rarely go) one bit.
jzl 8y ago
An interesting question here is whether this will ever affect what AMC ultimately pays the movie studios. In the same way that Moviepass had to pay AMC the full ticket price for each admission, I'm sure that for now AMC will have to pay the studios their full cut for each admission. But will the exhibitors start approaching the studios about working out a revenue sharing model for subscription passes that's not tied to individual admissions?
adjkant 8y ago
As a Moviepass user I'm likely gonna ride it til it dies then switch to this because: 1. Online ticketing means I can see a movie even the first night and not worry about selling out since you have to get to the theatre to buy the ticket 3. The concession rewards will def be nice too. 4. The IMAX/3D option is nice even if I don't use it much. This was very smart and calculated by AMC, especially on the release date. It doesn't look like Moviepass has more than a few months left and won't be able to adjust to this. I'm also hoping this will force Regal to do the same because frankly, it's a better theatre when available. I'll miss Moviepass and glad it came, but I don't see any way it lasts. I'm just glad I got the chance to burn the VC money towards over 40 movies in the past 10 months for the low price of $2.5 a movie. Honestly though, this deal is surprisingly good as well and wondering if it goes away after Moviepass dies. The 12 month price guarantee is amazing too though.
- mrrsm 8y ago
  It is 3 movies per week. Which chances are is more then what the average person is seeing weekly anyways.
  - adjkant 8y ago
    Oh WOW. I misread that. Wow that's a deal. Edited my comment accordingly.
klosnet 8y ago
AMC fires people for wearing MAGA hats.
zaroth 8y ago
$240/year seems way too steep for me. And 3 movies per week is too many. Perhaps if it included 2 guest passes a month it would be significantly more compelling. Rule of thumb, Recurring monthly revenue is worth 5x the one time purchase. If my actual utilization averages out to once a week I want to be paying closer to $10/mo for the $50 of al la carte tickets. It doesn’t matter to me that it’s AMC only because I have a great local AMC and they carry all the movies I would expect them to. If you could pre-pay for a certain number of months of it, it could be a pretty neat gift idea.
dreamcompiler 8y ago
Most new movies suck. Not even 80%, but more like 95% are just derivative crap designed to make most of their money on the international market with CGI spectacle rather than good writing. I'm perfectly happy to pay full price for the one movie I see a month in the theater I like, especially since MoviePass and the like are just more I-am-the-product fuckery.
maerF0x0 8y ago
And here I just bought a Sinemia[1] pass (billed annually) ... ~$10 per month for 2 tickets for 2ppl per month (4tickets total). I do like that I can reserve 2 tickets at once though (seats beside eachother) [1]: https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans

79 points by gandutraveler 8y ago

The key bits: > On Tuesday, the theater chain will begin offering guests the chance to see up to three movies per week for the monthly fee of $19.95. > However, AMC’s program offers some features that MoviePass has not matched. Namely, customers can see movies in premium formats such as IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and RealD. MoviePass can only be used for 2D films. > The exhibitor said that subscribers will not be able to carryover movies from week to week if they see fewer than three. Unlike MoviePass, however, they can even see all three movies on the same day, and they can watch movies they have previously seen. Guests can also reserve tickets in advance.

ghaff 8y ago
None of the articles are explicit but I assume that the subscription can only be used for one ticket at a time; i.e. you can't see one movie per week with 2 guests.
- e1ven 8y ago
  In their FAQ (https://www.amctheatres.com/faqs/alist https://www.amctheatres.com/faqs/alist) it says that only the subscription holder can use the tickets. They check for a photo id on check-in.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    That's what I figured. The limit seems pretty sensible. Most people won't hit it most of the time, even if they're pretty heavy movie watchers, but it probably prevents usage that's really unprofitable.
heyheyhey 8y ago
> Guests can also reserve tickets in advance. This is a big plus over MoviePass. At my local theater, all the good seats are sold out days in advance so MoviePass is useless until a week after the movie's launch.

456hdsaq234g 8y ago

Also important: MoviePass parent, Helios and Matheson’s. Stock was trading at $38.86 a share in October 2017. $0.44 today. Yeaaah moviepass is screwed (I am a subscriber who likes the product but understand it is completely unsustainable).

mikestew 8y ago
understand it is completely unsustainable I think everyone knows it's unsustainable. AMC even specifically called that out by announcing that their pricing was "a sustainable pricing model". Not that that was directed at any company in particular. cough
rory096 8y ago
For some additional context, HMNY was at $2.50 in September 2017.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

kakarot 8y ago

I don't spend $240 a year at the theatre and I have no intention of starting now. If this is the best AMC can do while keeping a margin, then we might be in trouble.

ghaff 8y ago
I'm not sure why "we might be in trouble." I'm certainly not the target for this. I maybe go out to one or two movies a year and cost really doesn't have anything to do with it. Pretty much any subscription plan has to be priced for fairly heavy users--and there are people for whom going out to a movie a week is pretty common. You probably don't subscribe to HBO if you flip it on once a month (though admittedly that sometimes seems to be the case for me).
nightski 8y ago
That's even just for a single person in the household! If my significant other & I wanted to do this it would be $480/year on movies. That is insane, we generally spend well under $100. I like Marcus theatres' $5 Tuesday Movie night. It's unrestricted and you can go to brand new releases for $5 / ticket. It's really the only way we go to the theater now.
- giobox 8y ago
  > It's unrestricted and you can go to brand new releases for $5 / ticket Except that you can only go on a Tuesday night. A pretty clear restriction. FWIW, in many European countries similar services operate very successfully for approximately around the $20 per month park. If it's not suitable for you personally, don't buy it, but it's clearly workable for a lot of people. For me this would work out ok with just two movie visits a month.
  - nightski 8y ago
    I meant unrestricted in content (New releases, stadium seating, 3D, etc...) as I thought I was being pretty up front with the day restriction. It's not a service either. You can just go if you feel like it. But hey if someone feels like they get $480/year of value out of the movies then do not let me persuade you otherwise! I subscribe to plenty of services.

tehwebguy 8y ago

We liked MoviePass (pretty sure I even posted about it here). Then the CEO went on an idiotic rampage about people “gaming the system” and we got caught in the crossfire. We used it about 1.5 x per month and loved it. Something came up one night and we couldn’t see the movie we got tickets for. Then they changed to the once-per-film policy, retroactively, meaning we could no longer rebook the movie we missed. I gave their awful customer service 4 attempts at fixing it via the app CS and via Twitter DMs. Oh well! Unlike some here I think they have a big opportunity— yes it’s built in another industry’s back but if they do it right they can end up with their own special events or even buy out distressed theaters and operate independently. Think Netflix moving from licensing to O&O content. Seems like they won’t make it that far though, subscribing to tickets in 2018 isn’t the same barrier of entry as fast HD streaming in 2008 or whenever Netflix nailed it down.

samatman 8y ago
The "Net" in Netflix started as a site where you could rent DVDs, a service that, astonishingly, is still offered. That was the barrier to entry: they had a customer base already paying them for content. MoviePass has no comparable moat.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Why astonishingly? Not everything is available on streaming. Though, unfortunately, having driven all the local DVD rental places out of business, Netflix has been letting their back DVD catalog rot to the point that I'll probably drop my legacy DVD subscription.
- Reedx 8y ago
  It's interesting how incredibly disruptive that was, yet relatively short-lived as the dominant model. It was a good move that they didn't name it DVDFlix or MoviesByMail!
  - malloreon 8y ago
    I vaguely recall reading somewhere that Reed Hastings knew in 1999 that streaming would be a thing and that physical media rentals were a stopgap.

mikestew 8y ago

Ouch. MoviePass' parent company was already down 30% this morning on news that they want to do a reverse split. Then 20 minutes later AMC lets this loose. I can't imagine that it was coincidence.

rory096 8y ago
HMNY was up 26.7% yesterday, all in the last half hour of trading. It's now down about 8% (or 3¢) on Monday's close.

pkaye 8y ago

I don't find enough good movies in the theatres that warrants paying for a subscription plan.

mieseratte 8y ago
Personally, I feel the same way. Never really did enjoy the cinema experience, maybe seeing one or two movies per year, and as we head deeper into a world packed with $FRANCHISE films, I end up having less and less major releases to care about. One of the folks at work has the MoviePass subscription, and while he does like going to the movies it sounds like he ends up going a lot just because he has it. To the folks that have MoviePass: Were y'all already going to the movies frequently, or do you end up going more because of MoviePass?
- 456hdsaq234g 8y ago
  Went to cinema less than once a year without moviepass. Now maybe once a month?
  - pkaye 8y ago
    If you go once a month do you save money with the moviepass? I usually get discounted tickets from Costco when I want to watch.
    - mieseratte 8y ago
      Not all markets have MoviePass and CostCo. I grew up in the wealthiest county in my state, and we still didn't have a CostCo, but we had plenty of theaters.
throwaway5752 8y ago
I agree with you! It's been 6 years since I've been to the movies.

gringoDan 8y ago

I always thought this is how this model would play out. MoviePass provided proof of concept, but the theaters have no reason to play ball and enter a revenue-sharing partnership with MoviePass when they can just launch their own competing product. AMC will make up for discounted ticket sales in concessions. Once you get people into the theater, there are a lot of up-charge opportunities. Food & drinks (and alcohol if they can get a liquor license) make up most of theaters' profit. I assume the UX will be better than MoviePass as well since ticketing should be fully integrated - no need to physically go to the theater to purchase tickets, find out that tickets for the movie you'd like to see are sold out, swipe a different credit card, not be able to use the theater's rewards program, upload your ticket stub to the app...when you think about it the UX for MoviePass is actually pretty awful. Doubt many people are seeing more than 3 movies a week anyways on MoviePass, and several subscribers I know also pay for IMAX movies. For them it's a no-brainer to pay $10 more per month to see (effectively) unlimited IMAX films.

rhino369 8y ago
AMC also has a good relationship with movie distributors, who are the biggest barrier to unlimited movie passes. AMC can neogicate a revenue sharing model with the distributors, like Spotify does. I’m guessing if a customer sees 15 movies in a month for 20 bucks, AMC isn’t paying the distributors for 15 regular viewings. Probably more like (20 / X viewings) * (1 - margin). MoviePass cannot do that because threaters are middle men in their model.

jccalhoun 8y ago

The only theater in my town is an AMC "Classic" which means they don't have Imax, or Dolby Cinema and I don't care about 3d so I think I'll stay with Moviepass as long as AMC accepts it.

jedberg 8y ago

> MoviePass’s business model is controversial. ... It believes that the data it collects on consumer behavior will be so powerful that it will find alternative ways to make money. They also shakedown local theaters. This happened right near me. They told the theater that they want 50% of the concessions sales. The theater said no, so Moviepass stopped supporting that theater. The theater lost so many concession sales from Moviepass customers going elsewhere that they relented and agreed to their 50% commission.

koolba 8y ago
How do they compute their 50%? Do the concessions have to bought using the MoviePass charge card or do they audit the books somehow and take 50% of all concessions? If it's 50% of everything that sounds like a true shakedown!
- lgregg 8y ago
  I doubt they use the charge card because the main reason they have the ticket verification feature was implemented because users would buy things in addition to their tickets. They basically have you take a picture of your ticket and use mechanical turk to verify.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
AFNobody 8y ago
If a theater accepts a 50% shakedown on concessions it makes one wonder if all theaters are that desperate to fill seats these days.
- stevesearer 8y ago
  It is more that if people have the option of seeing a movie at a theater who accepts MoviePass vs a theater that doesn't accept MoviePass, they are likely to select the former. So while they might not have been desperate before, being cut off from basically all MoviePass subscribers would not be good for business.

scarface74 8y ago

This is not a bad deal. I could never get my dad who is a frequent movie goer to deal with the complexity of Movie Pass. But this he would go for. If you see two movies in a month you would break even - even if it’s not a movie you would pay money to see. My wife an I look at the movies as either worth paying full price, a “Plex Original”, or not worth even taking the time to wait for it to “fall off the back of a truck”. We might go out and see our Plex Originals. I would probably buy her the pass at least because she doesn’t work during the Summer and she would see more movies between both our son and the two of us. If you see even one IMAX 3D movie it’s worth the cost and unlike Movie Pass, we can order online and reserve seating in advance.

ghaff 8y ago
Yeah, it seems pretty reasonable if this chain is convenient for you. I don't have theaters convenient for me so I don't tend to go out and would mostly rather watch at home anyway. But going to a few movies a month is hardly in compulsive movie viewing territory and a lot of people prefer to go to the theater for various reasons. I'd be curious how much AMC thinks they'll make on the actual pass and how much on add-on business (subscriber bringing a guest, food & beverage).
- scarface74 8y ago
  I didn’t think about the subscriber bringing a guest. Most people don’t go to the movies alone.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Exactly. So if I'm a subscriber who goes to a lot of movies and don't have a specific partner who always goes with me, I'll be inclined to drag along various friends who might not otherwise have paid for a ticket and gone to the theater.

AustinGrandt 8y ago

Been a MoviePass subscriber for a long time (back when it was $30+) and I am still a big fan, but this offering has me honestly thinking about switching. I already pay for AMC stubs and go to AMC the majority of the time. Combined with being able to book beforehand, go to premieres, and see the 1 or 2 movies in IMAX that I want to each year this could be good. Only drawback is AMC's pass not having the flexibility/number of theater's with MoviePass, especially for more indie theaters where I live. Curious to see how MoviePass responds (if at all)

ksec 8y ago

I am naturally going to assume people will be uneasy with AMC having their data compared to MoviePass since they are now owned by Chinese?

magic_beans 8y ago
That might be a concern for people on HN but very likely not for the population at large.
ceejayoz 8y ago
"This guy likes comic book movies" seems like a pretty minimal data point. China can have that info on me, if they really want to pay for it.

15charlimit 8y ago

Nobody wants a dozen different "movie subscriptions" just like nobody wants a dozen different "streaming service" subscriptions. The value of the early movers/original services is that they gave access to EVERYTHING (or nearly everything) with a single login/payment. Whatever value was originally generated by the first service is quickly lost as soon as everyone and their dog gets greedy, spins up their own special snowflake version of (service), and pulls their content out of the original service. This forces consumers to choose between signing up & paying for a dozen different services, or canceling everything and simply going back to the convenience & ease of piracy, which, incidentally, makes everything from everywhere available in a single location (value!).

pavel_lishin 8y ago
And yet, I have both a Netflix and a Hulu subscription, and we get some access to Amazon's video selection via Prime.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  And yet, two (maybe two and a half) isn't the "dozen" the grandparent post is discussing. There's room for a couple services with good content libraries. I don't know that there's room for each major media company to have their own. I've personally opted to skip the new Star Trek series because I have no interest in a CBS-specific streaming service.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    Same, but there aren't that many large movie theater companies. AMC competing against a third-party "shitload of movies" provider isn't diluting the pool too much.
- 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago
  Its not fragmented enough, and prices are still dirt cheap. AV subscriptions are 20-50 dollars per month.
8y ago

joshwa 8y ago

> Since 2002, ticket prices have increased by 54%, while ticket sales have fallen 22%. The movie-theater industry seems to make it seem like the former is a reaction to the latter, but it's probably the opposite. Wouldn't the rational economic reaction to falling ticket sales be to reduce prices?

kemitche 8y ago
It's rational only if you expect that lowering prices would result in enough additional volume to increase profits. If you can boost your prices by 50% and only lose 20% of your sales, that seems like a win in terms of net profit.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Especially when there are so many other forces that probably are causing people to go to movies less. Other entertainment options (no streaming in 2002). Bigger/better TVs in many homes. Honestly, you could tell me I could go to a local movie theater for free and it wouldn't change my behavior (to rarely go) one bit.

jzl 8y ago

An interesting question here is whether this will ever affect what AMC ultimately pays the movie studios. In the same way that Moviepass had to pay AMC the full ticket price for each admission, I'm sure that for now AMC will have to pay the studios their full cut for each admission. But will the exhibitors start approaching the studios about working out a revenue sharing model for subscription passes that's not tied to individual admissions?

adjkant 8y ago

As a Moviepass user I'm likely gonna ride it til it dies then switch to this because: 1. Online ticketing means I can see a movie even the first night and not worry about selling out since you have to get to the theatre to buy the ticket 3. The concession rewards will def be nice too. 4. The IMAX/3D option is nice even if I don't use it much. This was very smart and calculated by AMC, especially on the release date. It doesn't look like Moviepass has more than a few months left and won't be able to adjust to this. I'm also hoping this will force Regal to do the same because frankly, it's a better theatre when available. I'll miss Moviepass and glad it came, but I don't see any way it lasts. I'm just glad I got the chance to burn the VC money towards over 40 movies in the past 10 months for the low price of $2.5 a movie. Honestly though, this deal is surprisingly good as well and wondering if it goes away after Moviepass dies. The 12 month price guarantee is amazing too though.

mrrsm 8y ago
It is 3 movies per week. Which chances are is more then what the average person is seeing weekly anyways.
- adjkant 8y ago
  Oh WOW. I misread that. Wow that's a deal. Edited my comment accordingly.

klosnet 8y ago

AMC fires people for wearing MAGA hats.

zaroth 8y ago

$240/year seems way too steep for me. And 3 movies per week is too many. Perhaps if it included 2 guest passes a month it would be significantly more compelling. Rule of thumb, Recurring monthly revenue is worth 5x the one time purchase. If my actual utilization averages out to once a week I want to be paying closer to $10/mo for the $50 of al la carte tickets. It doesn’t matter to me that it’s AMC only because I have a great local AMC and they carry all the movies I would expect them to. If you could pre-pay for a certain number of months of it, it could be a pretty neat gift idea.

dreamcompiler 8y ago

Most new movies suck. Not even 80%, but more like 95% are just derivative crap designed to make most of their money on the international market with CGI spectacle rather than good writing. I'm perfectly happy to pay full price for the one movie I see a month in the theater I like, especially since MoviePass and the like are just more I-am-the-product fuckery.

maerF0x0 8y ago

And here I just bought a Sinemia[1] pass (billed annually) ... ~$10 per month for 2 tickets for 2ppl per month (4tickets total). I do like that I can reserve 2 tickets at once though (seats beside eachother) [1]: https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans