See a movie every day in a theater for $10 a month?!

[thewayne]

This guy was a founder of Netflix and thinks that he can create and sell subscriber profiles and make money doing this. I've seen 25 movies this year and saw 53 movies last year, which would have represented $190 out of pocket under this model. If my local theater subscribes, which I don't know if they will, how can there be a downside using this until they fail? Imax and 3D showings are excluded, which is no big deal for us. This would be a huge money-saver for me. Maybe create a new throwaway email account for this along with a disposable credit card or Paypal account so anything they collect doesn't tie back to you and you're gold.

This is going to involve some very creative accounting since so much of the direct ticket sale goes straight to the movie maker/distributor, now they're adding another layer in to that mess.

I cannot see this as a long-term viable business model, but if my local chain is stupid enough to buy in to it (I just sent them an email asking about it), then I'm willing to exploit their stupidity while paying ridiculous concession prices to help them stay afloat.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-15/netflix-co-founder-s-crazy-plan-pay-10-a-month-go-to-the-movies-all-you-want

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/17/08/15/1557222/netflix-co-founders-crazy-plan-pay-10-a-month-go-to-the-movies-all-you-want

Comments

[elf]

I wonder if any theatres in my area would do this - adult movie prices in most places are over $10.

I suppose the theory is that families will buy 3-4 monthly passes, attending on average once a week, and single adults will buy one, and pay for a date, and the combination will draw in enough money.

I don't see it working, though. Oh, a few months, maybe. But $10 gets your whole family and any friends you drag over access to Netflix for the month; $10 plus time plus parking plus concessions for a much more limited range of options is not at all comparable.

What will kill them is teen use. Many adults don't have time for a movie a day; many teens do, and families would love to buy them a $10 monthly pass to a movie house to give them something not-dangerous to do after school. Only, most movie houses really don't want 10-50 teens every afternoon.

(I think. Maybe I've got that wrong, and that's the angle they're looking for: lots of matinee teen movies, not taking valuable paid seats away from the evening shows.)

[thewayne]

Our matinees are still $8, our regulars are $14.  I got a reply from the chain and they said they're considering it but will not be early adopters. $10 won't get your whole family, but $10 per head per month will.  So my wife and I would be $20 a month, which would still be a huge savings.  If I were still single in Phoenix, I frequently saw 2-3 movies a week, but I'd probably just keep to one membership under this plan and if I was dating just pay the regular price for my date.  But that's all speculation. For the theaters it's all about the concession sales.  They get a percentage of ticket sales, a bulk of tickets goes to the movie producers/distributors on a sliding scale with the theater getting a growing percentage the longer the movie stays there.  But here, as rapidly as movies move out, I can't see that percentage growing too much.  I just learned that Atomic Blonde will be gone as of Friday, but the emoji movie will stay on.  sigh

[moxie_man]

Part of what may or may not allow it to succeed is dependent on the contracts each theater must sign with every movie studio before they are allowed to show films from that studio.

The Saco Drive-in (second oldest in the nation) took their grievances to social media. They have a huge following. Large enough that it won them a free digital upgrade a few years back in a contest sponsored by, I think, Honda. They pointed out in SM how much of the ticket price went to the studios and how the studios were demanding new contracts that would prevent them from charging by the carload. The studios apparently backed-off as Saco still charges by the carload.

[thewayne]

That is interesting, and good for them!  I'm still waiting for my local house to upgrade to 4K projectors: you do not want to see a 3D movie here!  Smart people drive 2 hours to El Paso to an Imax for that! I heard back from my local chain, and they're looking in to it but won't be early adopters.  And apparently AMC is not very happy about this and are looking at ways to block it, according to this article in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-amc-moviepass-20170815-story.html.  I find that curious.  Clearly there are shenanigans going on.  If you get in to an AMC by waving your magic pass, even if AMC receives the difference on the ticket price, you're not using your AMC Movie Pass, which (A) deprives AMC of your membership fee, and (ii) deprives AMC of an additional data point for their data warehouse for their attempt to monetize and advertise to you.  Now, you have to be a big chain, like AMC, to do something like that, so you'd think that a small chain like Allen in New Mexico should jump on the band wagon, which makes me wonder why it isn't. I wonder if AMC is seeing people subscribe to MoviePass, get in for essentially free, and then not buy concessions.  That would definitely cost AMC money and drive down their profit, which is already hurting as seen by numbers for this summer.

[moxie_man]

Considering the concession stand is the only place most movie theaters make a profit, i could understand why they would be concerned. Alas, the big chains do overcharge there.