kenbenobi

That's what I do. I used to rarely buy concessions when going to movies. But now that I'm not paying for tickets, I almost always get a soda, or pretzel bites, or both...

I just found out 2 of my friends don't have to submit pictures of their ticket stubs. I assumed it was everybody, but I guess not.

TomOpus

If people keep abusing it, it will be everybody.

DthRdrX

I rarely bought concessions before but now I find myself actually spending more on them than the ticket would have cost me. Go figure.

TomOpus

If I go to a theater with a full menu, I'll overdo it and spend way more than I planned.

Why So Blu?

So instead of AMC and whoever else bitching and moaning about MoviePass doing their thing they should fucking be thanking them. That's the majority of their money being made right there - on overpriced junk food. Sure, opening weekend totals matter, but it comes down to the $6 and up on a small coke. I can get a 2-liter bottle of the stuff at my supermarket for .89 - $1.29.

tanman

Yep and this has been my point all along. There are ways to actually make MP sustainable and increase profits for everybody but they can’t see past the end of tomorrow and will happily ride MP to their grave for short term gains.

DJariya

Android app appears to be broken as some have already mentioned.

I went to see Bad Samaritan and I tried submitting my ticket countless times, but it would be stuck in a loop with the camera and never let me submit the ticket.

So I uninstalled the app and re-installed. For some weird reason, it didn't log me out. It prompted me for the ticket verification once the app launched and this time I was able to submit.

I hope this was just one buggy isolated incident.

RoboDad

Exactly. There are several avenues that can help MP survive, even thrive, and also help improve the bottom line for theaters (and studios). If they could get all of them working together, they could become the next Netflix.
Concession profit-sharing, ticket discounts, movie promotion within the app, and ad revenue from nearby merchants (especially restaurants) could all be used.

fujishig

https://seekingalpha.com/news/335382...rence-call-hit

The gist of it:
The parent company took a 16% hit after the SEC filing and the reveal from an AMC earnings call saying MoviePass paid 12.02 per ticket to them
SEC filing said: 15.5M cash on hand, 27.9M deposit. But they are bleeding 21.7 million a month. I'm not even sure how that math works.

jjcool

24th time you bought a ticket with no intention of actually seeing the movie?

dex14

DJariya

FYI

Looks like Movie Pass had a new update today (5/8) that fixed some bugs for Android. Hopefully it fixed the camera ticket submission issue.

dfmaverick2

So, looks like it will go bankrupt within a month if the reports are accurate, huh?

DJariya

Yeah those numbers aren't very encouraging. They could very well go under before the summer movie season is over.

TomOpus

I wish I could comment on taking a ticket photo. I've been working every day since April 11. My boss went on a two-week vacation and I took over his hours. Then he got into a motorcycle accident and needed hip surgery. Because of the work hours, haven't used my MP in a month. I hope he heals...fast.

tanman

AMC earnings call when Aron revealed that the company was paid $12.02 per ticket from MoviePass during March and April on "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tickets."

Look how ridiculous that is. That’s just one chain. Don’t they realize that if MP goes away that those “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tickets.” That probably 80% (I totally made that number up) of those will go away too? But no, they’re just too happy to pat themselves on the back on a great earnings call that they had absolutely nothing to do with.

The “good” news, if you could call it that, is that the rules they are implementing according to them is curbing spending by 35%. That’s pretty good so at least all the inconvenience and sudden changes are helping MP survive.

fujishig

I know you guys think I'm just being a naysayer for fun and games but let's look at it this way: how much money do you think movie theaters would have to "share" with Movie Pass for this to be successful at this pricepoint? Let's be generous and say MP can make like 5 bucks a ticket off of their other ventures like selling your data and advertising and subscriptions. That's still 7 bucks a ticket. So you need the average moviegoer to spend enough money for the theater to make more than 7 bucks in profit each time, to give 7 bucks to Moviepass so they can break even (this is assuming that theaters make little to no money off of actual ticket sales and depend on concessions).

If more people are coming but they're costing you money, it's not really worth it. It's worth it now because Moviepass is the one bleeding money.

The one thing moviepass is doing is showing people that an all you can watch movie subscription is viable, and I'm sure theaters will do their own programs if/when they go away.

RoboDad

By your definition, they aren't showing that at all. All they are showing is that the big theater chains are just as greedy and stupid as Hollywood studios, and they are willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces.

The idea that it is all about ticket prices is absurd. There is a lot more money on the table than that. A LOT more.

And I obviously can't speak for others, but I will never purchase a chain-specific MoviePass replacement. There is zero incentive for me to do that. There is only one major theater chain in my area, and they don't do reserve seating and they are always crowded, so the experience is awful. Plus, even for people who DO sign up for those programs, if they travel to a place where that chain isn't active, they can't use their plan.

Bottom line, if /when MP fails, I will just go back to seeing four or five movies a year in the theater, and watching everything else on Netflix.

fujishig

Again, though, they are getting users by basically giving away money. I'm not saying theater chains aren't greedy and stupid, I just fail to see the business model or path to profitability behind 10 bucks a month for as many movies as you want to see.

The parent company's stock is down to less than a buck now.

Why So Blu?

Time to buy stock!

RoboDad

They are "giving away" tickets because they are trying to show the theaters how much business they are driving, but the theaters would rather lose that business than work out some kind of deals to help the model succeed (and again, it is more than just ticket prices).

fujishig

Not sure what you mean by it's more than just ticket prices, but Movie Pass was basically a non entity to most people until they lowered the price, so in that sense, it is about price, in fact it's all about price.

RoboDad

I don't know how much more simple I can make it. Their idea was to set up a service that drives customers to theaters, and get the theaters to embrace the concept. Then the theaters would make deals, as I and others have said numerous times, including reducing the ticket prices they charge MP, and sharing concession revenue, buying in-app promotional ads for new movies, and working with local "value-add" businesses (restaurants, etc) to also drive business there through digital coupons and in-app ads. See? It is more than just ticket prices.

Maybe that business model would end up failing, but as it now stands we will never know, and the theatres will lose all of the business that MP has been sending them.

fujishig

The disruptive part of their service is the price. The debit card is a cool workaround, but largely unnecessary and fraught with problems (nobody is going to buy them for that technology). The one thing that got them all of these subscribers was the insane price. Sure, the data selling thing, the restaurants, the in app ads, all that stuff sounds nice to investors (I guess), but if they're doing it it's still in its infancy. But 10 bucks to see a movie a day? That's what brought everyone.

So let's look at the opposite. Say all the theater chains cut a deal with MoviePass, and Moviepass becomes huge. Like amazon huge. Like that's the first place people go when they want to see movies. What happens then? Well, what happened when places like TRU and Barnes and Noble outsourced their online stores to Amazon? Amazon got the marketshare, everyone got conditioned to shop for Amazon, and Amazon either dropped them like a rock or did some hard negotiations once they had the leverage. Hey you don't want to double the amount you're paying? Guess I'll funnel everyone to your competitor. Don't want to pay to advertise your movie? Maybe we'll cut your showings off. And they tried these strongarm tactics already, so it's not like I'm speculating here.

I'm not saying the business model wouldn't work, I'm just trying to explain why movie theaters, or at least the large ones, aren't falling over themselves trying to keep them around.

DJariya

I saw that cutting off movies with no repeats saved them some money, but not nearly enough.

I think I saw a blurb that before the cutoff people were committing fraud by seeing something like Black Panther many times by checking in and letting their friends use their cards to see the movies. Those people would probably loan their friends the MP cards and the friends would log into their accounts on their smart phones. Probably also led to the ticket submission update.