from Hacker News

SEC filing suggests MoviePass’ time is running out

by thedarkginger on 5/9/18, 4:19 PM with 112 comments

• by emodendroket on 5/9/18, 4:39 PM

  > When the company changed those rules to limit subscribers so they could only see a given movie once, no matter how long it runs in theaters, a support ticket stated, “we hope this will encourage you to see new movies and enjoy something different!” It turns out that was a blatant effort to cut costs, with today’s filing explaining that the move “enabled us to reduce our cash deficit during the first week of May 2018 by more than 35 [percent].”

  > There are a lot of ways to read that percentage, and in MoviePass’ defense, the company has also said that the goal was to prevent people from using MoviePass to buy tickets for friends who aren’t subscribers. But either way, a savings of more than a third represents a radical shift. Couple that with the fact that the most popular movie the first week of May was Avengers: Infinity War, whose astounding box-office performance is driven by repeat visits, and the connection seems clearer — MoviePass is openly trying to save money by limiting features its customers actively use. It isn’t a “test” or an “experiment,” as the company has claimed in the past; it’s intentionally making the subscriptions people have already paid for less useful because its business model is unsustainable.

  Getting rid of repeats saving 35% seems to point to some pretty widespread abuse. Who are these people seeing the same movie multiple times during its initial theater run?

• by vincentmarle on 5/9/18, 5:08 PM

  In the Netherlands we have our own “MoviePass” (called Pathé Unlimited) started by the country’s biggest theater chain (Pathé) since the early 2000s, so the concept is definitely not new to us, I was actually surprised to learn that Cinemark didn’t have their own subscription model when I moved here since it worked really well in Europe (both for customers and for Pathé).

  The reason why the model works for Pathé and not for MoviePass is because of 2 reasons:

  - Pathé owns their own theaters, so they can run the subscription program at a loss, but make the money back with condiments sales because of the increased flow of visitors

  - Pathé owns the most theaters in NL, there’s always one closeby. The subscription program is usable by the majority of the population because of physical proximity.

  So for this to work in the US, the big chains basically need to offer this themselves. I hope that Cinemark will learn from MoviePass’s validation of the market (clearly there’s a huge demand) and undercut them by offering their own program. #lastmoveradvantage

• by chollida1 on 5/9/18, 4:32 PM

  That filing did hurt, the stock's gone from 1.35 at the open to 0.94 cents now. Heck the short sale rule is in effect for them now.

  Now they have to convince their customers to use the service less, while trying to increase the number of subscribers they get reoccurring revenue from .

  That's an almost sisyphean task.

  Even harder will be convincing one of the chains to buy them.

  I'm guessing that if we don't see an announcement of a sale to one of the movie theater chains in the next week they'll end up bankrupt and one of hte major theater chains will by at least their data at that point.

  How do you go about convincing a company to buy you when they know that you'll be there in bankruptcy court to buy at a cheaper price.

• by dbatten on 5/9/18, 5:23 PM

  Wasn't there some article a while back about how MoviePass was trying to have a big enough market-share in terms of movie-goers (read: popcorn and soda revenue for theaters) to be able to start pushing theaters around? In other words, they could say to theater companies "hey, maybe you should think about giving us tickets at a discount so you don't lose out on that sweet sweet concession money." Or maybe even play one theater brand off against another?

  I wonder if theaters have figured this is a waiting game and they can just let MoviePass die and go back to business as usual...

• by dwighttk on 5/9/18, 4:30 PM

  It doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that even has a chance of being profitable... The only reason to join is to save money on tickets, the only way they make money is if people spend more on membership fees than the tickets they buy.

• by vm on 5/9/18, 5:14 PM

  Reminds me of Classpass and it's business model evolution. Sounds like they have transitioned well after spending significant capital.

  http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/01/technology/classpass-credit-...

• by X-Istence on 5/9/18, 7:05 PM

  I like my movie pass, and it has gotten me to the theatre more than I would have in the past... I aim for at least 1 movie a month, because a movie ticket costs 20 cents more than my movie pass subscription.

  If I go twice in a month I can skip a month and not feel bad.

  I don't buy concessions though, so theres no money to be made there.

  Only being able to see a feature film once, not something I am entirely happy about because I'd have liked to see the new Avengers twice, but I can live with it. It does allow me to go to a movie I wouldn't usually see just because it's "free".

• by alistproducer2 on 5/9/18, 5:10 PM

  File this under: DUH!!!! This service never had a chance in hell at becoming profitable. Pretty sad that so much money is thrown at obviously trash ideas like this. I'm pretty sure that money would be better spent funding companies that are working to solve real problems.

  I'm just sad I didn't sign up to blow through some of that sweet, sweet free VC money myself.

• by calbear81 on 5/9/18, 5:09 PM

  ... I was somewhat expecting this to be possibility so we frontloaded our movie watching to get our money's worth but also bought through the Costco deal as we expect Costco to cover if they did go out of business given that Costco has a generous return/satisfaction policy.

• by robbintt on 5/9/18, 6:56 PM

  I don't think I would subscribe for this - good movies are seasonal and if the movie isn't good the theater would need to pay me to go, maybe $250 would be a good fee for me to go to a movie of unknown quality.

• by anonu on 5/9/18, 5:08 PM

  MoviePass sorta feels like the insurance game - it makes sense from a business perspective if you can sell to enough people of varying interest in going to the theater to watch a movie...

• by amorphid on 5/9/18, 5:08 PM

  I get my money's worth out of MoviePass. I'll milk that membership until it dies or the ROI goes negative.

  I love you MoviePass, but you are not bright.