Moviepass

[Edward64]

Still worth it?

MoviePass will limit customers to three movies per month

MoviePass, the struggling movie subscription service, will limit customers to three movies per month.

The company is trying to burn less cash so it can stay in business.

Under the previous plan, customers could see one movie per day in theaters. The change to three movies per month takes effect August 15. MoviePass says 85% of its customers already see no more than three per month.

The company also announced Monday that it will keep the monthly subscription price at $9.99. It is backing away from a plan, announced just last week, to raise the price to $14.99.
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As part of its new model, MoviePass is doing away with a bunch of other changes, too.

The company will suspend surge pricing, which sometimes added as much as $8 to the cost of an individual ticket. And it will no longer enforce ticket verification, which required users to take a picture of their ticket stub and submit it to the company as a way to stop abuse of the service.

The new plan will also include "many major studio first-run films," according to the company. That reverses a change announced last week that would have cut access to blockbusters within the first two weeks of release.

[Butter]

Yes. At $10 for 3 movies a month, it is still worth it to me, especially if they do away with the opening weekend limitations and the surge pricing.

Are they going to make it though? Probably not.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Of course, some portion of that 85% this clown mentions were subscribed to the 3-per-month plan already ... which is now increasing in price for them.

[stevew]

Next step is to make it harder to cancel than a gym membership

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by stevew

Next step is to make it harder to cancel than a gym membership

Thats funny. I had to go and buy a rental lease agreement at Wal-mart and show the gym I was moving back to Iowa from St. louis to get out of my membership.

[kurtism]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...pcorn-vengence

[molson]

Originally Posted by kurtism

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...pcorn-vengence

Buying a ticket and not watching the movie is technically a violation of their TOC, but it's obviously one that they couldn't ever enforce.

And it was always fun to see the ways some people felt the need to justify their abuse of the service. (the ones who actually violated the TOC, not just the heavy users). It was just like pirates - they only did it because the company harmed them first somehow, by not offering the product on the price and terms that they wanted and felt they were entitled to.

I haven't cancelled yet, but I'm keeping a close eye on the app and it's not usable for me yet. This week, if I checked the app at about 6:30 PM, after work, I could go to Slender Man and that's it. Even the discount second-run theater was completely blocked. The most optimistic analysis is that they're going to make it extremely difficult to see anything until 9/15 when everyone is on the 3-movies a month plan, otherwise, there will be a run on the theaters by people trying to get their last unlimited movies and reward points in. And then on 9/15, we'll get that version of moviepass Mitch Lowe claimed we'd see where blockbusters are blocked for a few weeks after release but most everything else is available.

As of now though, I haven't actually managed to see a movie since 7/22. Though there was a 5-day vacation in there.

[Butter]

It's 8/15, supposedly this week. But yeah, they have been limiting it to 2 movies a day, and it was the same couple all weekend. Slender Man, The Meg, and sometimes The Spy Who Dumped Me.

I went to see Black Klansman this past week somehow. But Mission Impossible has still NEVER been available on the app for me, and this is going into Week 4 of its release, I believe.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Butter

It's 8/15, supposedly this week. But yeah, they have been limiting it to 2 movies a day, and it was the same couple all weekend. Slender Man, The Meg, and sometimes The Spy Who Dumped Me.

I went to see Black Klansman this past week somehow. But Mission Impossible has still NEVER been available on the app for me, and this is going into Week 4 of its release, I believe.

Apparently, (and nobody can really know anything about moviepass going forward), when you hit that opt-in button you're in the new plan at the start of your next billing period. The latest day people can opt-in is 8/15, so everybody should be moved over by 9/15.

I got a weird email from moviepass saying advertising Mission Impossible specifically for Tuesday. I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the two movies available all day Tuesday. It seems like they've gotten behind one movie a week in that matter, maybe through a deal with the studio. Slender Man last week and the The Spy Who Dumped me the week before.

[CrimsonFox]

I'm ready to cancel. I do not want to be limited to crass ppy movies I don't want to see.

[molson]

Moviepass got a bit better the last few weeks, I was mostly able to rely on the app - an evening movie time that showed as available during the day was still available when we got to the theater at night (though from reddit, I know this was still hit and miss for some people). There were generally 4-5 movies available each day, and they cycled daily so I was able to catch what I wanted, just not always on the day and time I wanted.

But, with my billing date coming up, I've cancelled and have signed up for Sinemia. Which is a little terrifying, because I paid for the year in advance. That's risky both because that company could implode too, and because Regal could launch a subscription service any day and then that would suck to be locked into Sinemia. But, I took the chance, and with 3 movies a month at $10/month I'd break even in about 4 months.

With that plan on Sinemia (in theory), every 2D movie at a fandango/Atom-capable theater is available, you can buy tickets in advance, and you can earn reward points with Regal and Atom/fandango. Sinemia makes you pay the fandango/atom convenience fee when there is one, but, at least for the moment, that's waved if you go through Facebook movies, and even after that, reward points on Atom and fandango basically cancel out the fee.

My final moviepass tally was 12 monthly payments, totalling $120, for 56 movies, average movie cost of $2.14. Plus a shit-ton of free popcorn with all the Regal Reward points.

[molson]

Thought I'd check in here again. Moviepass is still unusable and blocks most movies. It's a great service if you want to pay $9.99 just to see Indivisible and no other movie this month. I don't regret cancelling, nor do I regret using the service to the fullest when I could. It was so fun to just see everything I had any remote interest in without thinking about cost at all.

I've signed up for Sinemia, and it's been pretty terrifying. I paid $120 upfront for a year of 3 movies a month. So, $3.33 a movie, certainly a great deal if it was that simple. But about a month in, they started charging everybody a random $1.80 processing fee per ticket, regardless of what plan you are on, and regardless of what the terms were when you signed up. And, there's many reports of them cancelling memberships for vague alleged violations of rules. So you could pay $120 up front, and then they just could dump you month 1 and you're out all that money. And it's kind of a pain in the ass to use. You login in, order an advance ticket, they give you a one-time debit card number to use on fandango or Atom. Which works some of the time. And you're on the hook for convenience fees imposed by fandango and atom. Facebook is currently running a promotion where you go through their site to buy tickets at fandango or Atom, they waive the fee. That helps, but it only works 75% of the time for me. Then when you get to the theater you have to check in on the app.

A lot of users have managed to get credit card chargebacks due to Sinemia's shady practices, but I'm hanging in there, determined to get more than $120 worth of movie tickets out of them. Meanwhile, I just hope that Regal comes out with some subscription service like AMC did (since there's no AMCs near me). Moviepass kind of got me addicted to movie-going so I'm regularly scheming to get my fix.

And moviepass, as a company, is so far down the shitter it's ridiculous. I know another reverse stock split is on the table, and I forget the exact math, but $1,000 invested in moviepass last year would be worth something like a third of a penny now. And they're apparently splitting off from their parent company to form their own, independent, economically non-viable, shady, company.

[larrymcg421]

Moviepass dropping Studio Movie Grill from their e-ticket list was the final straw. I signed up for AMC and I love it so far. I almost forgot what it was like to be able to buy tickets in advance. Also, the monthly fee counts towards your rewards points, which is pretty cool.

[Butter]

I dropped Moviepass about 2 months ago. They really screwed the pooch by not selling about 4 months ago, before everybody realized how terribly run they are.

[CrimsonFox]

I am seriously tired of not being able to watch the movie i want. I have heard about amc. Perhaps I need to switch.

[Edward64]

FWIW

https://www.cnn.com/business/live-ne...3be8217602fbc2

The Nasdaq has finally dumped MoviePass.

Helios and Matheson (HMNY), the parent company of the movie subscription service, said Tuesday in a government filing that it was delisted from the index. The company failed to meet an important Nasdaq requirement: Listed stocks must trade above a dollar.

Falling off the Nasdaq had been a danger for Helios and Matheson for months. The company tried to boost its stock price last summer from 8 cents to $21. But that plan didn't work.

Trading of the stock will be suspended at the start of business Wednesday, according to the filing. Helios and Matheson says it does not intend to appeal the decision right now, and shares will still be eligible to trade over the counter.

The delisting "has no effect on the day-to-day business operations" of Helios and Matheson and its subsidiaries, including MoviePass, a company spokesperson said Wednesday.

The company added that it will still go ahead with plans for a partial spinoff of MoviePass.

[molson]

I've managed to last 6 months with Sinemia without getting kicked off, and I just broke even, including fees. So, I get essentially 18 free movies over the next 6 months, as long as they stay in business and I don't get cancelled for forgetting to check in or something.

I hope there's a better subscription option in 6 months. Come on Regal!!

[Logan]

Moviepass has enough cash for enormous billboards in Times Square at least.

[molson]

Update

Sinemia, dead, as of a few months ago. Sucks for you if you bought a year-long subscription (some credit card companies did chargebacks, some didn't - mine did).

Moviepass on "hiatus", may never return, was not really a viable option for months before that.

But the long-awaited (at least for me) Regal subscription plan will be released in the next week or two. $18, $21, or $23.50 a month (with a 12-month commitment) depending on your location and theater. Unlimited 2D movies - even multiple movies in he same day if you want. You can reserve tickets ahead of time on the app for 50 cents (and have up to 3 reservations at a time), or buy same day at the box office or kiosk without a fee.

There's a Regal a few blocks from my work, and another about a mile from my house, so I'm looking forward to going 5-6 times a month or more like I did in the moviepass days.

Edit: The Regal Unlimited website with theater tier lists and other info is live now if you go through the backdoor, it's not yet linked to the home page

Regal Unlimited - The Unlimited Movie Pass | Regal

[larrymcg421]

I've been using AMC for a while now and I love it. The Regal plan presents an interesting conundrum for me. AMC has much better theaters in my area, so it's better for seeing big budget movies. However, they have no indie theaters in the area, so I can only see indies that are big enough to make it to the big theaters. Regal has the Tara, which only plays indies, and many of them are ones that don't make wide release. But their nearest theaters for seeing big budget films aren't nearly as good as AMC's.

[thesloppy]

Ironically, as little sense as it made for a middle-man, it actually seems like a pretty solid business plan for the actual movie theaters/chains. I might check out the Regal subscription and it's probably been literal decades (millennia?) since I last spent $18 in the same month on movie theater tickets.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by molson

Update

Sinemia, dead, as of a few months ago. Sucks for you if you bought a year-long subscription (some credit card companies did chargebacks, some didn't - mine did).

Moviepass on "hiatus", may never return, was not really a viable option for months before that.

But the long-awaited (at least for me) Regal subscription plan will be released in the next week or two. $18, $21, or $23.50 a month (with a 12-month commitment) depending on your location and theater. Unlimited 2D movies - even multiple movies in he same day if you want. You can reserve tickets ahead of time on the app for 50 cents (and have up to 3 reservations at a time), or buy same day at the box office or kiosk without a fee.

There's a Regal a few blocks from my work, and another about a mile from my house, so I'm looking forward to going 5-6 times a month or more like I did in the moviepass days.

Edit: The Regal Unlimited website with theater tier lists and other info is live now if you go through the backdoor, it's not yet linked to the home page

Regal Unlimited - The Unlimited Movie Pass | Regal

I had bought a year's subscription to Sinema four weeks before it collapsed, neer had a chance to use it. Thankfully I was able to get a refund

[Butter]

The predominant chain in my area is... Cinemark. Whose subscription service consists of spending $9 a month for a single movie ticket and then getting unlimited tickets for $9 a month. Which is great, except their early bird price is $6.50. And I tend to watch movies on weekend mornings/afternoons.

Meanwhile, AMC and Regal are both like a half hour drive from my house.

What I'm trying to say is Cinemark can eat a dick.

[stevew]

My local theatre is some random group. It’s frustrating

[TCY Junkie]

Originally Posted by Butter

The predominant chain in my area is... Cinemark. Whose subscription service consists of spending $9 a month for a single movie ticket and then getting unlimited tickets for $9 a month. Which is great, except their early bird price is $6.50. And I tend to watch movies on weekend mornings/afternoons.

Meanwhile, AMC and Regal are both like a half hour drive from my house.

What I'm trying to say is Cinemark can eat a dick.

There's a cinemark mile from me who has movies out a while. They are around 2 dollars. Nice theater, but not one mention of cinemark on outside of building. Guess they want everyone to go to the mall cinemark across the highway.

[larrymcg421]

Regal Unlimited - The Unlimited Movie Subscription Pass | Regal

Regal Unlimited is live now. My thoughts...

Annual Commitment - You have to have the plan for one year. There doesn't even appear to be a buyout option, like the old school Moviepass had.

Unlimited - No limit of three per week like with AMC's plan.

Monthly - Three tiers of $18, 21, and $23. For me it would be $21 for all the theaters in my area.

Fees - 50 cents each time you use the app to buy a ticket in advance. Extra fees for "VIP seating", and any premium formats like IMAX, 3D, etc. AMC has no surcharge for these.

The only thing that made me even consider it is it would include the Tara, which is my favorite indie theater and often plays indies that never make it to an AMC. But there are too many drawbacks, so I'm sticking with AMC.

[molson]

I signed up just after midnight local time when it went live this morning like a big weirdo.

No AMCs near me though so it was an easy choice and I don't have to weigh those two services. It's also nice that I'm the lowest cost tier and in a town where even moviepass didn't seem to move the needle of theater attendance much, and there's only one IMAX screen showing 1 movie at a time. So it's easy enough to just get tickets with no fee at the kiosk for everything except maybe opening weekend and blockbusters, which I rarely do anyway, or to pay the IMAX upcharge in the rare event I want to do that.

Edi: There's reports on reddit that some regal employees are completely bewildered by how this is supposed to work....I'll maybe give it a few days before I use it.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by molson

I signed up just after midnight local time when it went live this morning like a big weirdo.

No AMCs near me though so it was an easy choice and I don't have to weigh those two services. It's also nice that I'm the lowest cost tier and in a town where even moviepass didn't seem to move the needle of theater attendance much, and there's only one IMAX screen showing 1 movie at a time. So it's easy enough to just get tickets with no fee at the kiosk for everything except maybe opening weekend and blockbusters, which I rarely do anyway, or to pay the IMAX upcharge in the rare event I want to do that.

Edi: There's reports on reddit that some regal employees are completely bewildered by how this is supposed to work....I'll maybe give it a few days before I use it.

Yeah, I'd definitely sign up for it if I didn't have AMC as an option. It's still a great deal even with all the "drawbacks". Hell, the original Moviepass I had at the beginning of the thread (for $34.95 a month) was a great deal for me.

[Izulde]

There's a Regal literally within walking distance of me so I'm tempted to jump on that. $21 tier but it could be worth it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

MoviePass Owners Put Shuttered Service Up for Sale, Ending Drama

[CrimsonFox]

it still works tho. I just saw a movie with it the other day

[molson]

The crazy thing is, even the last months to a year when moviepass was unreliable, they STILL lost money on every user who managed to see 1-2 movies in a month, and moviepass was still a good deal for those users.

Regal Unlimited has been flawless so far. Moviepass screwed their investors and likely committed crimes, but, they were the best thing ever to happen to movie-goers. They bought us so many movie tickets, and now that AMC and Regal both gave in and started subscription plans, neither can really drop them.

[CrimsonFox]

yeah moviepass would try their shit and make movies unavailable at different times. and the app wouldn't work all the time. But I'm flexible and would reboot my phone and suddenly things would work or I would see one of the few movies they offered or whatever. I'm still getting my money's worth

[Edward64]

Dead, more dead, and deader.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/media...tcy/index.html

The curtain has come down on MoviePass after the company filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.

MoviePass was once a revolutionary ticketing service that let people see an unlimited amount of movies for cheap. The company said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it considered "strategic alternatives," but couldn't find any.
Helios and Matheson (HMNY), MoviePass' parent company, also filed for bankruptcy this week. Both businesses will liquidate their assets. Helios and Matheson's stock, which was once worth $5,100 (adjusted for stock splits) is now at zero.

[molson]

You can read the entire bankrupcy filing here:

MoviePass_Inc__nysbke-20-10244__0001.0.pdf | DocDroid

If you were a member until the very end, and especially if you paid for an annual membership you didn't complete, your name may be in here as a creditor.

Don't hold your breath though, reported liabilities are $198.7 million. Assets are between $1 and $10 million.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by molson

You can read the entire bankrupcy filing here:

MoviePass_Inc__nysbke-20-10244__0001.0.pdf | DocDroid

If you were a member until the very end, and especially if you paid for an annual membership you didn't complete, your name may be in here as a creditor.

Don't hold your breath though, reporters liabilities are $198.7 million. Assets are between $1 and $10 million.

Not so much a company as a mechanism through which venture capital firms helped young people get cheap movie tickets for a few years.

This has all the makings of a good documentary once all the dust has settled.

[larrymcg421]

Thank you, Moviepass, for your stupid, shortsighted, ridiculously unworkable business plan. I now spend so much less money to go to the theaters.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

This has all the makings of a good documentary once all the dust has settled.

You probably ain't wrong.

[molson]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

Thank you, Moviepass, for your stupid, shortsighted, ridiculously unworkable business plan. I now spend so much less money to go to the theaters.

Regal Unlimited is the last entertainment subscription I'd ever drop. I wish it was around my whole life. It feels weird to be so thankful to a entity that ripped off so many investors and probably committed many crimes for leading the way with this, but, still - thanks moviepass!

Hopefully all of the theater-specific subscription services stick around long-term. I haven't heard much about how they're impacting the bottom line of these companies in the time since all the moviepass drama ended, but, I hope they're all doing well with it.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by molson

Regal Unlimited is the last entertainment subscription I'd ever drop. I wish it was around my whole life. It feels weird to be so thankful to a entity that ripped off so many investors and probably committed many crimes for leading the way with this, but, still - thanks moviepass!

Similar to how Napster, which definitely broke laws, ended up leading to music being far more accessible.

Hopefully all of the theater-specific subscription services stick around long-term. I haven't heard much about how they're impacting the bottom line of these companies in the time since all the moviepass drama ended, but, I hope they're all doing well with it.

The difference I see here is they are at least getting some direct benefit in increased concession sales when people come more often. Moviepass was trying to tap into that market, but outside of their Studio Movie Grill theaters, were not successful. Whether those increased sales are enough to offset the ticket reimbursements long term remains to be seen.

[Kodos]

Moviepass back from the dead? Now with blockchain and enforced commercial watching!

[molson]

You'd think the movepass brand name would have a negative value to a project like this.

I'm glad I'm in a Regal town, nothing they can do will top Regal Unlimited for me. Though we are down from 2 Regals to just 1 now.