MoviePass - will it die a premature death or is it here to stay

yeah with e-tickets they have a paper trail. I think some people actually managed to do the thing that I was curious about, which is somehow use the preloaded balance to buy a 3D or IMAX ticket, presumably by going to a pricier theatre, checking in so the balance loads, then going to a much cheaper theatre and using the preloaded balance to buy the fancier ticket.

I think the scanning thing is in beta with test subscribers?

I think the “beta” is they are making accounts with suspicious activity take pictures

lol I just got the email myself. haven't committed fraud but my usage is high so

Yeah I started having to scan my stubs a few weeks ago, it's a little annoying but not a big deal

one of the arguments today I heard - "7 new movies don't come out a week, so this is bullshit"

I use it a lot so of course I was on the beta for the ticket snap. I'm doing 5-10 movies a month, I've got no problem with it. Only get annoyed with I go to the theater and it doesn't work for whatever reason and I have to pay out of pocket, but that happens rarely enough.
I've even joined their competitor, Sinemia, which lets you get a limited number of tickets per month, like Moviepass of old, but allows for 3D and 1 specialty screening a month (IMAX, 4DX, etc.). they had a good promo earlier at $10 for 2 tickets per month, retail at 2 for $25 (which is fair if you're seeing 2 IMAX movies a month). Main reason is for double dip days when I can use Moviepass for the first movie and Sinemia for Movie #2.

imo some of the gripes are legit - the service was aggressively marketed as "see a movie every day!" and in most theater markets that's now impossible. if you signed up for an annual plan looking forward to seeing the tentpole blockbusters multiple times with different friends, the substance of the service has been changed out from under you, and in general i think we should always be pushing back against the legally and ethically shaky claims of "hey it was in the TOS that we could always change the TOS" whenever any of these companies leans on that. it just sounds like lame griping because moviepass remains a ridiculously good deal.

for me the bigger annoyance, hopefully soon to be fixed: the "Showtime Unavailable" option is treated as a single film titled Showtime Unavailable, so if you've ever used it, you can never use it again. just looks like bungled implementation to me but I could see it lazily not getting fixed for ages.

changing the TOS is totally dirty pool, agreed - hoping someone sues them on that one

on Showtime Unavailable, sounds like that's on purpose to get people to not use that option to see Avengers multiple times, again - dirty pool

Technically the TOS explictly stated that Moviepass “reserves the right to change from time to time the number of eligible movies a member can see per month.”, though not being a lawyer, I don't know if that's airtight, or about as legally shaky as "<business> is not responsible for any damages to your vehicle if you park in our lot"

but can they change the TOS for an agreement you paid for a year in advance? if it's month-to-month i can see the loophole working, but long term it should be like a lease

the little I know suggests that such clauses almost never hold up in court, but you have to take them to court, which few are going to bother to do for a service where the annual membership was under a hundred bucks and pays for itself after 5-10 movies. so it's the kind of totally slimy lame-ass move that companies always get away with.

xpost IDK - to be honest I barely know what was in my TOS when I signed up. For years, the policy was that you could only see each movie once, and then last Fall they finally changed it (hence why a lot of users erroneously thought for a while that they weren't allowed to).

but clearly the TOS in place when I signed up didn't have such a clause in it, otherwise I wouldn't have seen the updated terms yesterday. *shrug*. I'm not even clear if the TOS in place expressly guaranteed you could watch each movie unlimited times or if it merely didn't have language forbidding it anymore.

I didn't care much as repeat viewings weren't what I typically used it for, as most movies I see repeat times I'm usually seeing in premium formats cos I'm a spoiled individual.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-08/moviepass-owner-s-cash-runs-low-as-9-95-monthly-deal-takes-toll

Helios & Matheson said in a filing Tuesday that it had just $15.5 million in cash at the end of April, and the firm has been going through about $21.7 million a month. It also has $27.9 million on deposit with merchant processors.

get it before it's gone!

lol

Can't believe I'm actually rooting for some dim-witted venture capitalist to sink a zillion dollars into a failing tech company with little chance of ever being profitable, but I've seen seven or eight movies in the past two weeks with this thing and I don't want the ride to end

I had a conversation a few months ago with someone in the movie theater biz, and he basically said, "We have no idea how they think they're going to make money on this, but as long as they're paying us full price for the tickets we don't care."

I've seen 49 movies with it this year. It stopped working for two weeks recently due to app updates, I almost had to go and buy a reading lamp

would you prefer moviepass stay like it is or would you prefer if they just started giving you money?
so now you can have a burrito instead of watching blockers or whatever.

what if I go to half the movies, but they're at a theater that serves burritos and the ticket comes with a burrito

My favorite thing about MoviePass is that their on-the-record business model is "let's lose money while you laugh at us" and their off-the-record business model is clearly "let's sell our user locations and weekend travel routes to a bunch of guys in a parking garage."

— Kaleb Horton (@kalebhorton) May 8, 2018

would you prefer moviepass stay like it is or would you prefer if they just started giving you money?
so now you can have a burrito instead of watching blockers or whatever.

the last five films I've seen at moviepass cinemas were: Suspiria (1977), Salesman (1969), L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (1970), Some Like It Hot (1959), and All About Eve (1950). I'm happy to make a sandwich and keep seeing things like this on a big screen.

(but I also saw Blockers bcz I like 30 Rock and Ike Barinholtz in Eastbound & Down)

what's the burrito equivalent of suspiria?

What does the "some guys in a parking garage" part of that Kaleb Horton tweet mean?

i assume some kind of weird reference to tech bro data miners

HMNY is tanking. I dunno, use it while you've got it.

several good series coming home... here's hoping it at least lasts the month

coming home? coming here

why can't those fickle venture capitalists act in our favor, for once

They really need a cash injection somehow, otherwise this probably has to be the last month.

socialize moviepass

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-moviepass-competitor-sinemia-quietly-launches-in-canada/

Not nearly as good as MoviePass sounds (only at Cinemax locations right now, for starters, and much stricter limits) but...better than nothing, I suppose.

people watching these kinds of services may also be interested to know that AMC has launched an AMC-only service called A-List ($20/mo plus tax, 3 movies a week, no restrictions on format) and Alamo is testing something called "Season Pass" but is just starting it at the Yonkers location as of today so the details will probably change a lot.

if you look at the moviepass subreddits there are lots of disgruntled MP users threatening to jump ship to one of these (assuming AMC isn't just trying to bury moviepass and then kill A-List), mainly because MP's latest attempt to stem the cash bleed is to add "peak pricing" of $3-4 surcharges to "popular" movies. this is supposedly algorithmic (responding to in-demand shows in your area) but nakedly isn't (current top box office movies are just always 'peak' everywhere). i haven't encountered this because i'm on the annual plan so i'm totally content to continue spending these VC's spare millions on whatever movies. so far i've seen 56 films with moviepass since october, and since i jumped to annual very quickly my total outlay is, i think, right around $100.

I've been on Sinemia. It's got its own issues, but it's a nice backup, especially if I feel like doing IMAX or 3D or I want to see two movies in a day. (Or if I want to get a second ticket for a friend). Or if I want to pre-order a ticket, which Moviepass doesn't allow.

The peak pricing is total bullshit, but still better than paying full price. In NY it's $4.50 and applies to pretty much every movie released in the last two weeks. I'm also on the annual plan - hope Moviepass lasts through December!

AMC Stubs A-List's a great deal but it's a lot further away than many other theaters in my area, including the Alamo Drafthouse. Of course I signed up for the waitlist on that immediately, we're supposed to get notified today or soon about it.

I'm well into the triple digits at this point with Moviepass. Best year ever.

moviepass is totally going to die soon tho isn't it? it's one of those vc backed companies that has no idea how it's ever going to be money-making.

this sinemia thing seems a bit of a waste of time, basically putting in a middle-man app with adds and possibilities of things going wrong in order to save a few $ per movie

i would be happy if some level-headed person scooped up moviepass and just reset them back to their terms and price point from a year ago, where they break even on a much higher price per month. it'd be a pretty substantial new addition to my budget but now i'm hooked on going to the movies a lot more often than before. i'm spoiled basically.

I've seen 74 films on Moviepass since Christmas, and paid for another half a dozen that should have been covered but the app fucked up. It'd totally be worth it at the old pricing, and I can't be mad at surge pricing as it's only going to hurt the sort of crybabies who said the service wasn't worth it once you could only see a film once, because they just want to see the same Disney films five times in a week

xxp Average cost of a movie ticket where I live is between $13-17, and that's not counting IMAX/3D upcharges. So bulk buying them at about ~$5 per ticket, and being able to see those (along with gad-sarned 4DX which is like $30-40 a ticket!) is a steal. It'll be my go-to once MP dies, unless Alamo Season Pass ends up costing too much.

looks like we're at the end of the line - service outage since last night revealed to be because they don't have enough cash in the bank to pay mastercard, and they're taking out six mil at usurious rates just to get them through the weekend.

They reverse split the stock this week (and I think dilution, I haven't been closely tracking) but after the r/s it went from $20something and now is already in the $3s.

apparently in total freefall tonight. massive blocking of movies (initially just mission impossible but then a bunch more) and 'peak' surcharges for virtually everything everywhere. this is just going off reddit reports, i was able to go see yellow submarine no problem but i would not be surprised if the app just plain uninstalls itself tomorrow before i can get to velvet goldmine.

This was a crowded short. Wall St. bet heavily against MoviePass's continued existence.

I can't imagine any such subscription service persisting, unless created by the likes of AMC, Regal, or Cinemark.

To those that benefited, thank some idiot 20-something fund manager, and the investors he once served, for subsidizing your entertainment.

AMC’s got one now. $20/month for up to three movies a week, plus they yknow make all the money on the popcorn anyway, which MoviePass obviously did not.

AMC also doesn't pay retail ticket price for the movies; not sure how much it is but probably it's at a point where even a user doing three movies a week, every week, and not buying popcorn, is a break-even. And since almost nobody will do that consistently, it'll make money, and meanwhile it works like any other 'loyalty program' where it's just to get you inclined to pick their chain rather than another, plus: "Oh hey, I just got a notification, if we buy two popcorns the second one is half off cause of my membership" etc. etc.

Anyway, I signed up for it to lock in the price for the first few months. Not crazy about the big-chainy-ness of AMC, but it'll take up the part of my MoviePass viewing that was "hey it's kinda fun to be keeping up with blockbusters / wide release stuff again." Pretty interested to see what Alamo's ends up looking like - depending on price point that could be a dream service for me. I've used MoviePass at Alamo a TON but since their most interesting screenings are the ones likely to sell out, not being able to buy in advance was a real obstacle. And I can go back to just paying retail price at all the groovy smaller theaters in town for the really interesting movies with friends. Etc.

I saw about 41 movies thus far. I came out ahead even if it closes up shop in 5 minutes

saw considerably fewer than you guys but I bought the full year subscription from
Costco and I’ve been enjoying the bundled Fandor subscription

even so, about 20 movies in, so it’s been more than worth the gamble

Stock is in a death spiral. Maybe they'll get bought out.