MoviePass: The Resurrection

The 'Pass' is dead, long-live the 'Pass'

'Movie Pass: The Resurrection',  sounds like a bad sequel and that's just what it is.

That's if Ted Farnsworth, the former top-dog at the crashed & burned MoviePass, has his way - I don't think its second-coming is in the cards.

Says Farnsworth,  "MoviePass is something that we can reshape and rebuild. It will take time, but I think we can revitalized the whole brand." Ted, there is no brand. There is nothing to save and resurrect!

MoviePass is the ill-fated movie admission subscription service which allowed members to view a movie per day for $9.99 per month.
Theory: more people in cinemas - sell more concession - make more profits which are shared between MP and exhibitor.
Reality: a colossal conceptual failure from the get-on.

CMG and ScreenTrade Magazine predicted, from MP's outset, that it was based upon a false premise and was doomed to fail and would never, ever work. After burning through $329 million (according to the bankruptcy filings) it shuttered its doors.

There was bad dealings on all sides of the MP scheme, as many of its members 'gamed' the company by using the MP app to buy tickets and resell them at a discounted admission price. Management couldn't see this flaw in their strategy?

But even after all of this nonsense, Ted Farnsworth says, "There's an opportunity here. We were a lot like Uber and what it did to the taxis." Someone should clue Ted in on the fact that Uber has never made a profit either. What's the definition of insanity?

Jim Lavorato, Founder/President
Entertainment Equipment Corp.

Playing The Content Game

Golden Age In Now!

As the options for content distribution grow, money is pouring into production - you just need to have a global mindset.

The current trend is to let the content be the brand and not the production studio or filmmaker. The demand for good content is huge - from cinemas, streamers, TV, the internet, and even video gaming - the appetite is insatiable.

The game in the viewing entertainment business is to tell your story on as many platforms as possible. Cinemas than streamer than TV and perhaps a segue into a video game - it's the vertical strategy that's in play.

Lots of options Worldwide

The demand is vast, global, and varied making this is the real golden age of entertainment for both the content maker and the viewer/user.

Jim Lavorato
Entertainment Equipment Corp.
Cinema Mucho Gusto blogspot

Docus Go Wide, and Their Right

Docus get it right

Fueled on by streamers and the boxoffice documentaries have never had it so good. At this year's Toronto Fest, for example, there were 850 docu entries which had to be whittled- down to 25.

It seems politics and global issues are driving the genre - and it's not about Trump for the films with the most impact. The current theme, and rightly so, is about politics in third-world nations - election manipulations, corruption, fake news/propaganda, and democracies on the brink of failure.

Wide and growing/Docus reveal 

Documentaries about post-Soviet Russia, the resurrection of Imelda Marcos and how the 90 year old exiled dictator and son (through graft) was allowed to return after 32 years and won seats in the Philippines congress.

Today documentary filmmakers see themselves as the real truth-teller in the industry and strive to present an accurate, non-partisan version of history.
Whether about Armenia, Russia, or the Philippines exploring the corruption and extortion of leaders that have and still do hold many countries from becoming prosperous democratic societies is what needs airing and action.

Look for the introduction of 4M Performance
the online business accelerator via your social
media platform - coming in November.







Dictatorship has superseded democracy in many cases. U.S. politics and its daily churn can be seen all day, every day on a wide variety of media outlets. It's the smaller, non-reported and often propagandized events that are occurring around the world in many countries that impact vast numbers of people in a detrimental way and go unreported by the international press. Documentary producers are trying to fill the void and draw attention to these much more significant issues.

I don't think most of us care about Kristen Stewart wanting to play a gay superhero, or Debra Messing crying out that black Americans who support Trump are mentally ill. What matters is the much larger issue of where the world (or most of it) is headed, and how this message gets to normal people in major democracies because where much of the world is headed is not a good place.

Jim Lavorato
Entertainment Equipment Corp.
Cinema Mucho Gusto blogspot