[echelon]

MoviePass was one of the most absurd ideas for a company ever. I don't know what they were thinking.

Unlimited movies and they ate the entire cost? They didn't arrange any special deals or anything - they just paid the full price of the movie. It was insane.

[bombcar]

The idea was they'd bootstrap it by giving you a credit card that could buy one ticket (which is all it was, a weird debit/credit card with a $15-20 authorization limit and a limited number of merchants accepted) - and then get the theaters onboard so that the theaters would be paying for it.

So (in theory) it's a "win win" if they get everyone onboard - the theater gets to sell popcorn, the movie studio gets a buck or two instead of nothing, and movie pass collects the subscription.

However, it needs them all to agree that the $15 ticket for "the empty theater" is really only worth $1 - which would go to the movie studio. That part never happened.

[WorldMaker]

AMC was one of the theater chains that did figure it out, but was also smart enough to realize that they didn't need the middle man and had a large enough chain to leverage. AMC A-List still exists. (Up to 4 movies per week at $23-35/month.)

[tracker1]

This is the one I was thinking of... I didn't know of a separate "MoviePass" than what AMC and a few other theaters did that was similar.

[WorldMaker]

Yeah, "MoviePass" was its own SV startup that tried to be the generic version of this pass and apply to "all" theaters. It burnt through a bunch of VC funds just to fail and it shouldn't have been a huge surprise that big chains like AMC decided to do their own similar passes on their own without a middleman.

[listenallyall]

I'd say it is indeed a huge surprise that a struggling company refused to do business with another entity which was trying to purchase tens of millions of dollars of its product.

[listenallyall]

> "smart enough"

AMC is the dumbest company (or more specifically, its CEO Adam Aron is the dumbest executive). MoviePass came in out of nowhere and became the largest purchaser of movie tickets... millions every week. And AMC actively fought against them, refused to even let them buy tickets at full price, and led the charge to drive them out of business. For what alternative? Mostly, nothing but empty seats.

AMC's stock price is $1.59 as I write this vs $50-70 while MoviePass was peaking around 2018. AMC had to do a 10-to-1 reverse stock split to avoid being delisted, they may need to do another one. They even got a brief "meme stock" spike over $250 and managed to do absolutely nothing productive (except pay the CEO more) with this new capital access.

[RankingMember]

There were also people abusing it to simply earn loyalty rewards at the theaters, e.g. people that lived close enough to theaters just going there, buying tickets, and not even seeing the movie just to pile up rewards points for free food/drink when they did actually go to see movies.

[bananamogul]

Actually, there was the kernel of a sound business idea.

The plan was that as you went to movies, you probably also went out to eat at a nearby restaurant, maybe stopped and had a drink, took transit to get there, etc. If they could hoover up all of that location- and merchant-tagged data, they could build a valuable profile for marketing.

Also, they believed that after you subscribed and gorged yourself on tons of movies for a couple months, the novelty would wear off and you'd revert to a more typical couple movies a month.

So if they could break even or make a small profit on the subscription, the data is where all the gold would be.

The problem was that they did not have the technology to gather all this info, not to mention the privacy/regulatory restrictions around essentially tracking your every movement and spend through a phone app.

There were a lot of other sketchy things about the company as well. Wall Street Millennial (a wonderfully entertaining channel) did a video on them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4vmCKIXOyw

[tracker1]

See the site for TFA... most screenings are at least half empty at most theaters and have been for decades. You have 18 screens showing 7-10 movies throughout the day, but most days people are working, or at school... most evenings are mostly empty too.

Not only that, but the bulk of the ticket charge goes to the distributer. Why NOT offer MoviePass screenings with the option to see a couple movies a week... it's the concessions that make you the money.. more butts in seats, more concessions.

Of course, many now have pretty acceptable home theater experiences... though I'd say more have large screens and sub-par audio. That changes the dynamics a lot with streaming options what they are. I don't know what the future of movie theaters is... luxury/dinner theaters are a pretty nice option, but when food costs in general are going through the roof it becomes something you just don't do as much. I mean, how much is a large popcorn and two drinks at this point? Let alone a mid-level pub meal at theater upcharge.

[Forgeties79]

1 movie per day I believe FWIW. I had it briefly as well. But they kept making changes it’s hard to remember exactly what the first iteration was.

[tracker1]

I am mostly only familiar with the AMC version of this (A-List) which I had pre-covid, but since there haven't been multiple movies I'd want to see most months at all.

[DoktorDelta]

https://youtu.be/YBO_7UezpbY

[benoau]

They watched Silicon Valley and really liked Slice Line's business model lol...