Movie Pass will let you pay $10, hit the movies all you want

AMC is throwing shade

AMC, the largest theater chain in the world, is also the exhibitor throwing a fit over the idea, and is threatening legal action against the firm. The theater chain said in a statement that MoviePass “is not in the best interest of moviegoers, movie theaters, and movie studios.” The company said it is consulting attorneys to find out if it can prevent MoviePass from being used within its chain. That’s going to be tough, as MoviePass isn’t going to be passing out membership cards – the whole thing goes through your debit card.

“From what we can tell, by definition and absent some other forms of other compensation, MoviePass will be losing money on every subscriber seeing two movies or more in a month,” AMC’s statement says, which shows that they seem to misunderstand the mode the same way investors do.

But Lowe knows Flix

Lowe not only helped found Netflix, he also helmed rental-kiosk service Redbox. He’s been in the business of getting eyes on movies for a while. Lowe says that MoviePass is a win for everyone involved. It’s not that people are staying home to watch Netflix and the other 8 hojillion streaming services on the market, Lowe says. It’s the cost of the whole moviegoing experience.

“People really do want to go [to movie theaters] more often. They just don’t like the transaction,” Lowe said. MoviePass claims that it boosts movie attendance by a cool 111-percent, too, and that people who use MoviePass buy more concessions. Those are places where movie theaters make a lot of their money, so that seems like a good thing for theaters.

There are plenty of reasons to be a bit suspicious of the service, but it seems like AMC doesn’t really have a lot of ground to stand on, other than just the idea of not liking change.

Lowe thinks theaters will see the value of the increased traffic, and that MoviePass and theater chains will start to work in a more symbiotic relationship, with the chains cutting MoviePass in on concession sales and giving them advertising space in their establishments.

Looking at how the business model works, it seems like the biggest losers will be moviegoers and the general health of the movie industry.

 

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/08/16/netflix-cofounder-moviepass-reveal/