MoviePass Is Dropping Subscription Fees to $10 a Month

Megalith

Megalith

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This seems too good to be true, but MoviePass has drastically changed their pricing model: the company will now allow subscribers to see unlimited movies in theaters for only $10 a month. I thought the price was already fair when I was a member some years ago ($35 a month, I think), but this move is definitely going to get me to re-subscribe. If I’m not mistaken, the unlimited plan was previously $99 a month.

Lowe, an early Netflix Inc. executive who now runs a startup called MoviePass, plans to drop the price of the company’s movie ticket subscriptions on Tuesday to $9.95. The fee will let customers get in to one showing every day at any theater in the U.S. that accepts debit cards. MoviePass will pay theaters the full price of each ticket used by subscribers, excluding 3D or Imax screens. MoviePass could lose a lot of money subsidizing people’s movie habits. So the company also raised cash on Tuesday by selling a majority stake to Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., a small, publicly traded data firm in New York.
 
How are they going to make money with this?


The more people that sign up, the more money they are going to lose. Heck you could just troll them every day by getting a ticket to a movie.. and not even watching it.
 
even if FREE, i still dont want to go to a theater to see most anything.

maybe kids who need some place to hang out will like this, but i dont see who else
 
This totally sounds to good to be true. I smell a bait and switch coming down the pipe.......
 
If a lot of people jump on this and actually go to the movies, would that show the movie industry that the prices are just too high? Or would they blame piracy because the pirates are obviously to blame because reasons? And if a lot of people don't jump on this, would the blame go for shitty movies or that people just don't want to go? Or blame it on pirates, because...

$35 a month is too high for me. $10 would be great. I'd watch 2-3 movies a month, maybe as little as 1.

edit - I'm signing up. This looks pretty cool. I otherwise wouldn't have gone to the theater for most movies that are released. This is going to change. Theater gets money on popcorn and soda (treat yo'self!). The price definitely was the deciding factor on this one. $35 is too much. $10 is too little. I'd pay $15-20 a month and still be happy. Even if I didn't watch 2-3 movies to break even, on a month where I watched 4-6 movies, I'd make it up.
 
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They probably intend to monetize by selling information on the people who use the service, for advertising purposes. That's why they sold "a majority stake to Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., a small, publicly traded data firm."
 
It's not unlimited viewing, it's one movie per day which is quite a bit different. The idea behind this project now with the new owner is to collect demographic data on who watches what movie when and where and other such things so, it's the cost of doing such business basically. Yes, it'll lose money but in the long run if they get the data they want so be it. For $10 I can't see myself NOT subscribing but their website is obviously being hammered to death right now and it's nearly impossible to get a page to load so I can see if there's a supported theater in my area to begin with (and yes, I have several it seems as the page finally loaded).

Guess I'll have to see about subscribing in September if they still have this offer, just moved to a new city and will have a new apartment next month so, could prove interesting as long as I can catch a few shows a month - even though I'm pretty much retired now I'm not actually going to a movie every damned day even if my wife wants to. :)
 
pcgeekesq said:
They probably intend to monetize by selling information on the people who use the service, for advertising purposes. That's why they sold "a majority stake to Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., a small, publicly traded data firm."
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What movies I watch? They aren't getting my personal information, what color roses I like, color of my socks. I'm fine with this one. Besides, I use Facebook. Nothing is really 'secret' anymore.
 
Tiberian said:
It's not unlimited viewing, it's one movie per day which is quite a bit different. The idea behind this project now with the new owner is to collect demographic data on who watches what movie when and where and other such things so, it's the cost of doing such business basically. Yes, it'll lose money but in the long run if they get the data they want so be it. For $10 I can't see myself NOT subscribing but their website is obviously being hammered to death right now and it's nearly impossible to get a page to load so I can see if there's a supported theater in my area to begin with (and yes, I have several it seems as the page finally loaded).

Guess I'll have to see about subscribing in September if they still have this offer, just moved to a new city and will have a new apartment next month so, could prove interesting as long as I can catch a few shows a month - even though I'm pretty much retired now I'm not actually going to a movie every damned day even if my wife wants to. :)
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Where are you seeing the list of theaters? I just saw it supported those that take debit cards, but no map or list or anything.
 
Ur_Mom said:
What movies I watch? They aren't getting my personal information, what color roses I like, color of my socks. I'm fine with this one. Besides, I use Facebook. Nothing is really 'secret' anymore.
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Actually they are getting your personal info, you have to give them a CC number, street address and other such info for billing.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Where are you seeing the list of theaters? I just saw it supported those that take debit cards, but no map or list or anything.
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On the main page you scroll down and see a map featured with Zip code 10001 so, change the Zip code to something in your area and it'll take time to load the mapping info (again, their site is really being hammered today because of this price drop).

Later that minute edit...

Looks like they removed the map feature to track down theaters, and they did that in the past 10 minutes (around 11am Central time) probably because of the site being hammered so hard. Might keep checking on it and see if they put that back up, seems a bit strange, maybe it's just too much activity for 'em but when I checked 15 minutes ago that's how I got the supported local theater info myself.

But that map search thing on the main page is now removed as of 11:08am Central time.
 
Sounds good in theory but there is rarely more than 1 or 2 movies that come out each year that I care to see so "Not sure if this is just a scam to get me to pay more over the course of a year compared to what I might pay 1 or 2 times per year."

"MoviePass® makes all attempts to provide access to films in theaters nationally. However the time and locations for movies may vary depending on theater inventory, usage, and showtime availability. It is not until the User purchases a ticket at the theater, that the seat will be reserved and confirmed for the title and showtime selected. If the title and showtime the User wants to see is not available, MoviePass® will not be held responsible."

"MoviePass ticket inventory may vary from theater inventory. MoviePass will not be held responsible, if ticket availability has run out for MoviePass members, but the specific theater still has tickets available."

Sounds like to me a theater might have 1-2 seats for this system and once the "usage" is filled no more tickets will be available. In other words I doubt 100 people can show up at the same showing and expect the discount. Also you can't see a movie more than one time using the system.

Now something I'd sign up for is the equivalent of $10 a month for something like Netflix in the theater.
 
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[21CW]killerofall said:
I always go to the $5 showings and I don't think that there are at least 24 movies out there a year that I want to see.
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Lucky, Where I live this thing will pay for itself at like 9 movies a year. Friggin ridiculous prices..... to bad this didn't include a small drink and a small bag of popcorn. That will cost you almost double the price of the movie ticket......
 
Hmmm, the part about them having limited inventory is probably the catch, can you check this ahead of time or do you have to roll the dice and go to the theatre to maybe be SOL? This is tempting, but as others said, not sure there are enough good movies I want to see each year to warrant this.
 
Website is totally dead as of 12:30PM Central time, absolutely nothing going on so, it's not like they couldn't have known this would happen when the news went "viral," I mean come on. :D
 
I would lose money on this deal. I know of only about 6 movies worth my time last year. And I only went to 3 of them. Cost wasn't the issue, the theaters were!
 
Maybe they're using the mindset that printer manufactures use. The printer is very inexpensive but the ink is where they make their money. In this case ink = popcorn, soda, etc. Maybe not, I didn't actually read the article.
 
Spidey329 said:
You gotta pirate that stuff these days.
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Dont get me wrong, I don't buy that stuff at the theater. I was just shocked at the price of the combo "deals". I hadn't gone to the theater in quite a while and saw that it was like 8 bucks for small bag of popcorn only. I about lost it when i saw the combo was $15 for small popcorn and drink. forget that noise......and they wonder why no one watches movies at the theater anymore, and why they are "losing money"..... because of this garbage.
 
This thing has bad reviews based on the notorious crap the company has pulled in the past. Limited showings, almost no tickets available due to algorithms that limit how many seats are actually in play, bait and switch, sudden switching of people to other plans in a way that causes many to not notice massive price increases, etc.

Not worth the risk.
 
M76 said:
I'd pay $10 a month to watch movies at home on my turf. I wouldn't watch them in a theatre even if they paid me.
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See i deleted my post because i assumed it was a streaming service. Then i started looking into it and it's more like pay 10$ a month to go to the theater once a day on them.
 
OldGator said:
This thing has bad reviews based on the notorious crap the company has pulled in the past. Limited showings, almost no tickets available due to algorithms that limit how many seats are actually in play, bait and switch, sudden switching of people to other plans in a way that causes many to not notice massive price increases, etc.

Not worth the risk.
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That's what I've been reading on the reddit posts. It's been a clustercuss.

Maybe I'll hold off for a bit to see how others fare.

Good deal, though.
 
OldGator said:
This thing has bad reviews based on the notorious crap the company has pulled in the past. Limited showings, almost no tickets available due to algorithms that limit how many seats are actually in play, bait and switch, sudden switching of people to other plans in a way that causes many to not notice massive price increases, etc.

Not worth the risk.
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Thats some good info to know before you sign up. don't want to be frustrated with the garbage when you are paying for "unlimited movies" and it comes with 15 * noting all the restrictions.
Looks like its a hard pass for me.
 
If they can't even keep their website up, why would I expect that they could execute their business plan and actually provide a reasonable experience? We they really surprised at the response?
 
RealBeast said:
If they can't even keep their website up, why would I expect that they could execute their business plan and actually provide a reasonable experience? We they really surprised at the response?
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I think it got a LOT more attention than they thought it would. It's on most news sites, Facebook is flooded with it, reddit, etc.. It's a hell of a response.

Which might send a message to the studios - shit's too expensive. If the company does good, there will be a lot more movies I'll watch in theaters. Right now, it's a very select few. If it were $10 a month, I'd go for even the B movies that I would have waited for a rental or Netflix.
 
RealBeast said:
If they can't even keep their website up, why would I expect that they could execute their business plan and actually provide a reasonable experience? We they really surprised at the response?
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I have the feeling the intent is to get tens of thousands signed up then 'unexpectedly' switch them all to expensive plans in the hopes that many won't notice or are simply too lazy to cancel.

This reminds me of the hotel coupon scams you see at McDonald's and other places along the interstate promising massive discounts on rooms, then, when you arrive you find out that the rooms were rented out and they want to book you for full price despite the parking lot being empty.
 
pcgeekesq said:
They probably intend to monetize by selling information on the people who use the service, for advertising purposes. That's why they sold "a majority stake to Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., a small, publicly traded data firm."
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Sooo.... they'll know (1) who I am, and (2) what first-run movies I watch? Just like Fandango does? Just like Google does? Just like the national theater chains I frequent do? And who knows how many other entities? This does not bother me.

And, monetizing data? Really? What do you think the fact that Mr. Pc Geek, Esq. saw the latest Star Wars movie is actually worth? Hint: pennies, if that.

The monetizing strategy is: partner with chains to sell otherwise-unsold seats at a deep discount to reduce losses, and hopefully make up profits on the increased food sales. Because mostly-empty 3pm Wednesday showings of three-week-old movies don't make money. And then, skim 10% off the top for the hard work of "administration", as if it's hard or costly to wrangle a website, payment system, membership database, and a small sales team to form partnerships.

SomeoneElse said:
Actually they are getting your personal info, you have to give them a CC number, street address and other such info for billing.
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Everyone has this information. Everyone.
 
Everyone has this information. Everyone.
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Yep that was my point, but in this case you are willingly giving it to them for the service of movie going. It also said in the article they will target ads directly at you. NOPE! No thank you, I don't need to be targeted anymore than I already am...
 
if only Canada had such deals? of course these amazing deals is never worldwide.
 
I heard about this when there was a blurb on the news which said AMC is upset about this pricing plan as it could potentially "harm the industry" and plans on suing Movie Pass over it. I had to laugh that they thought they could sue over this garbage, and then got interested in it.

But seriously whatever, if you go to 1 movie a month and want to see iMax or 3D or whatever then it's worth the $10. They don't have enough good movies per month to warrant this? Fine see a few good movies when the box office gets slammed and then have a dry spell.
 
This is to get asses in the seats who wouldn't go otherwise. Some people will go anyway; But lots of showings are practically empty. Sure, a few people will go and spend nothing on snacks and such, but many more will buy at least something, which is better than zero sales at all. Plus, all the folks which plank down their $10 and slowly stop going, but don't cancel.

Or maybe they're going to pull a 'Ballys', and simply never cancel anyone's account, and bill them forever, even after the person is dead. Once you've signed up for automatic billing, YOU can't stop it. Only the merchant can. It goes on even if you try to cancel your credit card. And if they have your debit card? They have access to your entire bank account. Forever.

No thanks.
 
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