4 ms·

It could have made sense, when the moonthly subscription cost was 50$, alas I doubt it.

koboll 7y ago
Regal just launched their own unlimited movies subscription for $18 a month. Then again, they don't have to pay full price to a middleman like MoviePass did.
- noneeeed 7y ago
  Yes, that was my point. For the cinema chain, the additional cost of a ticket is negligible if they are filling otherwise empty seats, and they make profit on the concessions. So long as they don't cannibalise full price tickets too much, then the maths works well for them. For MP, the arthmetic is completely different
  - ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
    But surely some amount of money from each ticket has to go to the distributor of the movie? I don't think charging 'nothing' for the ticket is just a huge loop hole in the system.
    - noneeeed 7y ago
      Good point, I'd forgotten about the distributor fees. A quick Google suggest an average of about 50% depending on the film, location and time in the release. Once you factor in profits from concessions (very high) and the adverts, the maths clearly works out well for the cinema chains. Certainly here in th UK a number of them are really pushing these sorts of schemes. This is all in comparison to MP, who have to pay the full retail price of the ticket and get nothing from the concessions. The chains can probably absorb two to three times as many visits in a month compared with MP.
jacurtis 7y ago
MoviePass actually did run as a $50 subscription for a few years and had a viable business model. Many people only know of MoviePass as the $10 a month subscription service that sprung out of nowhere about 2 years ago, but MoviePass had been around much longer than that. MoviePass started back in 2011 and originally required you to print out physical vouchers at home, and take them into the theater. MoviePass juggled lots of different pricing models ranging from $25 a month for 3 movies, up to $99 for an unlimited movies. And yes, for a while they had a $50 per month unlimited movie plan. For the first 6 years of their business, they operated in this semi-sustainable way. They had funding from AOL Ventures, True Ventures, and other venture capital companies during the time but ran a fairly sustainable business. In 2017 they finally had their "exit" when a publically traded analytics company called "Helios and Matheson" purchased a majority stake in the company. Helios and Matheson saw potential in MoviePass (which had been running "successfully" for 6 years at this point) and wanted to expand it to as many people as possible. This is when MoviePass decided that the best way to get lots of new users is to offer them something they can't refuse. How about $10 a month for unlimited movies. This led to a myriad of articles and free press about the company and a huge influx of customers. This is when most people had first heard of MoviePass as if it came out of nowhere, but it had a solid 6-year history of being in this business. The goal of this promotion was only to gain a large influx of customers. It was never intended to be a long term strategy. I also think that H&C (the parent company) intended to make money back by selling customer data (since they are already in that business anyway). Unfortunately, like the Hoover story, they underestimated how many people would take advantage of this offer for unlimited movies.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Stories like this, combined with personal experiences, have made me very anxious for the exit coming when I'm still invested in the future of the company. The new owners always envision a different business model and those often span a gamut from slightly sinister to patently absurd. Startups can have a lot of BS, it's true, but it's a different flavor from the post-exit BS.

Regal just launched their own unlimited movies subscription for $18 a month. Then again, they don't have to pay full price to a middleman like MoviePass did.

noneeeed 7y ago
Yes, that was my point. For the cinema chain, the additional cost of a ticket is negligible if they are filling otherwise empty seats, and they make profit on the concessions. So long as they don't cannibalise full price tickets too much, then the maths works well for them. For MP, the arthmetic is completely different
- ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
  But surely some amount of money from each ticket has to go to the distributor of the movie? I don't think charging 'nothing' for the ticket is just a huge loop hole in the system.
  - noneeeed 7y ago
    Good point, I'd forgotten about the distributor fees. A quick Google suggest an average of about 50% depending on the film, location and time in the release. Once you factor in profits from concessions (very high) and the adverts, the maths clearly works out well for the cinema chains. Certainly here in th UK a number of them are really pushing these sorts of schemes. This is all in comparison to MP, who have to pay the full retail price of the ticket and get nothing from the concessions. The chains can probably absorb two to three times as many visits in a month compared with MP.

jacurtis 7y ago

MoviePass actually did run as a $50 subscription for a few years and had a viable business model. Many people only know of MoviePass as the $10 a month subscription service that sprung out of nowhere about 2 years ago, but MoviePass had been around much longer than that. MoviePass started back in 2011 and originally required you to print out physical vouchers at home, and take them into the theater. MoviePass juggled lots of different pricing models ranging from $25 a month for 3 movies, up to $99 for an unlimited movies. And yes, for a while they had a $50 per month unlimited movie plan. For the first 6 years of their business, they operated in this semi-sustainable way. They had funding from AOL Ventures, True Ventures, and other venture capital companies during the time but ran a fairly sustainable business. In 2017 they finally had their "exit" when a publically traded analytics company called "Helios and Matheson" purchased a majority stake in the company. Helios and Matheson saw potential in MoviePass (which had been running "successfully" for 6 years at this point) and wanted to expand it to as many people as possible. This is when MoviePass decided that the best way to get lots of new users is to offer them something they can't refuse. How about $10 a month for unlimited movies. This led to a myriad of articles and free press about the company and a huge influx of customers. This is when most people had first heard of MoviePass as if it came out of nowhere, but it had a solid 6-year history of being in this business. The goal of this promotion was only to gain a large influx of customers. It was never intended to be a long term strategy. I also think that H&C (the parent company) intended to make money back by selling customer data (since they are already in that business anyway). Unfortunately, like the Hoover story, they underestimated how many people would take advantage of this offer for unlimited movies.

hinkley 7y ago
Stories like this, combined with personal experiences, have made me very anxious for the exit coming when I'm still invested in the future of the company. The new owners always envision a different business model and those often span a gamut from slightly sinister to patently absurd. Startups can have a lot of BS, it's true, but it's a different flavor from the post-exit BS.