Their goal was never to be profitable on paper, but acquire a ton of users and use them as bargaining powers for big theaters. It never worked though, as AMC a

Their goal was never to be profitable on paper, but acquire a ton of users and use them as bargaining powers for big theaters. It never worked though, as AMC and the others understood pretty well that the best way to deal with them is to ignore them and let them die which would eventually happen. It is a shame, because there is a real issue in the US with movie theaters that are mostly empty due to Netflix and other "At Home" offerings. The marginal cost of someone going to a movie is zero, so there is definitely some business there.