Oh No! Not Again! It's MoviePass, the get cinema admissions on the cheap scheme.
Once failed and bankrupt in 2019 the remnants of MoviePass were acquired by Spikes, a company made up of the original MoviePass management team, in 2021. Spikes, somehow, convinced Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong based gaming software and investment company and others, to pony-up the funds necessary to regurgitate MoviePass.
Under the original scheme, MoviePass subscribers paid $9.95/month for the ability to attend one movie per day. Under the new scheme, launched on September 1st, a subscriber can choose various levels of participation. For $10/month up to 3 movies could be attended per month. For $40/month up to 30 admissions. The new scheme is complicated, as credits are awarded for each participation level. All 3D films are excluded and where you live, for example in NYC or Southern California, you'll pay more. No information as to what MoviePass pays the cinemas for each admission has been provided.
MoviePass states that over 4,000 theaters are participating in their 'new' program, namely, the large cinema circuits - AMC, Regal, and Cinemark. Although no data is available on how many subscribers signed up, it appears that moviegoers received its launch with a big yawn.
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| It's deja vu all over again. |
The MoviePass premise to success is that as more people subscribe and attend more movies, concessions will increase at participating cinemas, ergo, the cinemas will 'share' their increased concession profits with MoviePass. The problem, for MoviePass, is that many, if not most, cinemas already have their own version of MoviePass - called customer participation programs. And there are streaming services where you can pay and view premium movies at home.
I predicted back in 2019 that MoviePass would fail as a viable concept and it's going to fail again. Repeating the same thing over again, with a few new twists, does not indicate a road to success.
By: Jim Lavorato, Entertainment Equipment Corp. eeccinema.com
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