AMC A-List & other theater subscriptions (1 Viewer)

[Malcolm R]

Well, they did release a new version of the app today. This is about the 4th or 5th time that they've done this. Whenever there's a new version of the app causing massive outages, it always seems to be released on a Friday.

 

[Johnny Angell]

When you live in the back waters (Little Rock) some things people take for granted aren't available. Like Ant Man in iMax 3D, we only got 2D. I called the theater and asked for the manager. The manger was Kaitlin, who sounded like a girl who'd better have her ID handy at a bar. She said no 3D because iMax didn't send a 3D version.

I called iMax got a person right away who was helpful and interested. He discovered there was a iMax hotline (310-255-5669) I could call. That number got me a guy who couldn't have card less. He said it was AMC that decided no 3D. So I called the theater again and Kaitlin said yeah, it was AMC that made the decision.

So I call AMC corporate and when I explain the issue to the operator she connects me to a programmer. I get his phone mail, leave a message, and never get a reply. Obviously, he doesn't talk to the peons.

So after all that, I got nada. They're not making big bucks off 3D, so I'm outa luck here. I should consider myself fortunate they showed JW2 in 3D.

That A-List is seeming less valuable to me. We're spending $40 a month on it, so I feel it locks me into AMC. Then AMC doesn't provide 3D, which was one of the selling points and justification for the higher price over movie pass.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

When you live in the back waters (Little Rock) some things people take for granted aren't available. Like Ant Man in iMax 3D, we only got 2D. I called the theater and asked for the manager. The manger was Kaitlin, who sounded like a girl who'd better have her ID handy at a bar. She said no 3D because iMax didn't send a 3D version.

I called iMax got a person right away who was helpful and interested. He discovered there was a iMax hotline (310-255-5669) I could call. That number got me a guy who couldn't have card less. He said it was AMC that decided no 3D. So I called the theater again and Kaitlin said yeah, it was AMC that made the decision.

So I call AMC corporate and when I explain the issue to the operator she connects me to a programmer. I get his phone mail, leave a message, and never get a reply. Obviously, he doesn't talk to the peons.

So after all that, I got nada. They're not making big bucks off 3D, so I'm outa luck here. I should consider myself fortunate they showed JW2 in 3D.

That A-List is seeming less valuable to me. We're spending $40 a month on it, so I feel it locks me into AMC. Then AMC doesn't provide 3D, which was one of the selling points and justification for the higher price over movie pass.

FWIW, my AMCs have plenty of 3D screenings - they just don't usually opt for IMAX 3D.

In my area, there's only 1 AMC that has IMAX 3D for "Ant-Man" - and they're switching to 2D Friday!

I'll try to see it tomorrow so I can get the IMAX 3D version...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I have noticed a similar trend in NYC - that movies will open with 2D and 3D showtimes, but that the 3D showtimes are scaled back dramatically after that first week. So if you wanted to see Incredibles 2 on opening weekend in 3D, no problem. But if you didn't get around to seeing it until last weekend (as was the case with me), the only option in many places was 2D.

 

[Sam Posten]

Movie Pass has gone insane. They are charging $3.50 for weeknight shows on movies that have been out for 2 weeks in the test markets that are now live.

This is good too:

 

[Jake Lipson]

Movie Pass has gone insane. They are charging $3.50 for weeknight shows on movies that have been out for 2 weeks in the test markets that are now live.

I don't doubt that surcharge will be unpopular, but their insanity isn't new. Movie Pass was always insane to think their business model would be profitable. This just demonstrates that it's not working and they are desperate.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It’s an obnoxious policy and I don’t like it. But if you live in a metropolitan market, as most MP subscribers do, the cost of a monthly membership plus a $3.50 surcharge is still less than the cost of walking up to the box office and buying a ticket.

I’ve seen two movies in July so far. Let’s say that they had charged me an extra $3.50 for each. That would mean that my cost was $17 for the month instead of $10. The theater charges between $16.40-$17.50 per ticket so that’s still a huge break on what it would have cost to pay full price for two tickets.

Again, I think it’s obnoxious but I’m not sure it’s stupid. Although the nationwide average ticket price is technically around $10, the average price for people in metro areas or suburbs of metros is about $15, and the biggest cities are well over that. For the bulk of MP's customers, who live in those higher priced areas, it's still a good deal.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Yes, but even if you pay the surcharge, they're still losing money on you because they have to pay the whole price of the ticket to the theater to get you in. So their model still doesn't make sense from a business perspective, and all the surcharge is doing is annoying their customer base. They're sinking fast.

 

[Malcolm R]

It’s an obnoxious policy and I don’t like it. But if you live in a metropolitan market, as most MP subscribers do, the cost of a monthly membership plus a $3.50 surcharge is still less than the cost of walking up to the box office and buying a ticket.

That's what they're counting on, that members will rationalize it as, "well, $3.50 still isn't bad to see a movie."

Seems weird to claim a mid-week showing as "peak" time. Are they charging a higher surcharge on weekends?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Yes, but even if you pay the surcharge, they're still losing money on you because they have to pay the whole price of the ticket to the theater to get you in. So their model still doesn't make sense from a business perspective, and all the surcharge is doing is annoying their customer base. They're sinking fast.

I don't disagree with any of that. I'm just saying, I get the kneejerk reaction will be for members to want to cancel their accounts (that was my first thought when the surge pricing was announced). But when I stopped to think about it, I realized that canceling might feel good momentarily, but would actually just cost me more.

Lately I've been visiting my local Regal far more than the AMCs, so for the moment, it makes sense for me to hold on to MP and not to switch to AMC A-List.

That's what they're counting on, that members will rationalize it as, "well, $3.50 still isn't bad to see a movie."

Yeah, I hate to go along with it because I do think it is a bad company with shady management, but I guess I'm a big ole' hypocrite, because I'm still benefiting from what they're offering. If I lived in a market that had lower prices, I might have reason to think twice. But as it stands, I see about four or five movies a month with MP, and even if I was accessed a surcharge for each of those movies, it would still be substantially cheaper to use MP than to pay full price at the box office. If I have to go back to paying full price, I will just go back to not going to the movies as much, which is where I was at before MP rolled out their $9.99 plan.

Seems weird to claim a mid-week showing as "peak" time. Are they charging a higher surcharge on weekends?

I'm not sure. Even though I was told that I was in a surcharge market and had to download a new version of the app in order to continue using MP, I personally have not been accessed a surcharge yet.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I’ve seen two movies in July so far. Let’s say that they had charged me an extra $3.50 for each. That would mean that my cost was $17 for the month instead of $10. The theater charges between $16.40-$17.50 per ticket so that’s still a huge break on what it would have cost to pay full price for two tickets.

Actually, your cost for the month would be $13.45 as you get one free "peak-pricing" movie per month.

 

[Jake Lipson]

That's what they're counting on, that members will rationalize it as, "well, $3.50 still isn't bad to see a movie."

Actually, I think they hope that the surcharge is a disincentive to use it, but you'll still keep the subscription. As stupid as that sounds, I think it's true. The CEO has said they hope to get enough occasional moviegoers to sign up for the service to offset the frequent users. So their ideal customer is someone who pays them $9.99/month of free money without actually using the service at all. For a service which is explicitly designed to save you more money the more you use it. Which is stupid. But apparently they want to get suckers to give them money without using the service.

Nice work if you can get it. The problem is that most people have common sense and expect to use the services they pay for.

 

[Worth]

Actually, I think they hope that the surcharge is a disincentive to use it, but you'll still keep the subscription. As stupid as that sounds, I think it's true. The CEO has said they hope to get enough occasional moviegoers to sign up for the service to offset the frequent users. So their ideal customer is someone who pays them $9.99/month of free money without actually using the service at all. For a service which is explicitly designed to save you more money the more you use it. Which is stupid. But apparently they want to get suckers to give them money without using the service.

Nice work if you can get it. The problem is that most people have common sense and expect to use the services they pay for.

It works. That's the gym membership model.

 

[Jake Lipson]

That's the gym membership model.

You're right. But the difference is that if you actually do use the gym membership, you're not really causing the gym to lose money. They're fine if you use it and they're fine if you don't. With Movie Pass, if you use it, you cause them to lose money.

I think it's weird to invent a product you admit you don't want people to use. Even people who pay for gym memberships probably think they'll use it when they sign up. The thing Movie Pass is missing is that the people who they want to subscribe who don't go to movies very often won't be interested in a subscription for movie tickets because they know they don't go very much. If you pay for a gym membership intending to use it, you're still paying less money than you would if you bought expensive equipment to work out on at home.

 

[Wayne_j]

Movie Pass's business model made more sense when I was paying $30 a month for it. There were some months that I used it more than others and they would probably even out over time. At $10 a month they lose money if you see just one movie a month.

 

[Malcolm R]

MoviePass stock is 19 cents, CEO says everything is fine...

https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/12/media/moviepass-helios-and-matheson-stock/index.html

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Imagine buying the stock at 18 cents and then having it somehow rebound - that would be the reward of the century.

MoviePass hopes to make money by selling user data and also by blackmailing/extorting theaters, as they have publicly stated many, many times. They don't use the word "blackmail" but their idea is to get as large of a percentage of the weekly box office as possible and then to tell everyone, "Either play ball with us or you'll lose all of this revenue." But the problem for them is that AMC and Regal have held firm, and MP can't survive without favorable terms from both. Those two companies have too much of the market share for MP to succeed without them. It doesn't matter if MP gets favorable deals from every other theater in the country, because those two companies together have something like 80% of the market.

I noticed that my local Regal just switched to reserved seating for everything. I wonder if this had been long in the works, or if this is part of a plan to make MP less attractive to their customers. MP works for last minute purchases but not for advance sales; reserved seating favors advance sales. One of the big perks of the AMC A-List program is that you can reserve your tickets online in advance at no extra cost, which makes having an A-List card just as good as using your own credit card to buy an advance ticket. I wonder if Regal's move to reserved seating is a precursor to their own type of subscription program that would include advance reservations as well.

Anyhow, I suspect we're going to see surge pricing on movies from studios that haven't played ball with MP and at theater chains that don't play ball with them, but that we won't see surges for titles where MP has partnered with the studio or at chains where MP has a deal with them. MP will then try to steer customers away from the surcharge titles and locations towards titles and locations with no charge, and then use that as leverage to get the studios/titles were surcharges were imposed to give MP better terms. It is extremely unlikely to work. But I'd bet that's the plan.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I think you're right, Josh. But I think they'll run out of money before they're in any position to leverage anything.

You can't come into someone else's house uninvited and expect them to feed you, and that sounds like what MoviePass is trying to do. It's a stupid plan.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

There is no viable path forward for MoviePass without the cooperation of the major studios and the major theater chains, and there is a less than zero chance that they'll get it. The studios won't play ball because a deal with MP in the end would cap their potential earnings to have a deal with MP (imagine if instead of getting their 90% from opening weekend blockbuster tickets priced at $15+, they had to settle for a percentage of a $10 monthly fee - not gonna happen), and the theaters won't do it because their margins are so tight, they can't afford to be giving discounts to millions of customers at the scale that MP wants.

I'm not even sure how the AMC A-List plan is viable long term at the current price point, but it's at least a reputable company offering a discount on their own services.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'm not even sure how the AMC A-List plan is viable long term at the current price point, but it's at least a reputable company offering a discount on their own services.

To be honest, it's probably not. But at least with AMC, when you come there and buy concessions, that money goes into AMC's pocket. When you bring a friend who isn't an A-List member, that money goes into their pocket. Movie Pass can't claim that because they don't get a cut of those extra revenues. That's what they want the studios and theaters to give up that won't happen. I also think AMC is going to try it for a while and see how it works. If they think it's unsustainable, they'll raise the price or end the program. But AMC will still exist.