
Robinhood: Millennials “loading up” on MoviePass stock - listenallyall
http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/moviepass-owner-helios-and-matheson-stock-price-millennials-buying-igoring-skeptics-2018-5-1024863463
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listenallyall
The status quo isn't working for theaters. Last year a 6% drop in admissions
and worst summer in 20+ years. Theaters need something to drive demand,
especially for off-peak times and non-blockbuster movies where they keep a
higher percentage of the ticket price (and all the concession profit). If
MoviePass continues to grow subscribers, it will be the biggest driver of
demand, and will be able to negotiate discounts from theaters, greatly
reducing its average per-ticket cost.

[http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/05/media/summer-box-
office/inde...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/05/media/summer-box-
office/index.html)

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gamblor956
MoviePass tried to demonstrate its leverage by blocking AMC theaters and
certain movies.

It didn't work. Instead, they just pissed of their customers and showed AMC
that they had no ability to drive customers to AMC.

MoviePass should have built upon its success at driving viewers to _indie_
films to target smaller theater chains and movie studios. Instead, it went the
VC way and try to artificially scale itself up by buying customers, and is now
on the brink of collapse.

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listenallyall
The geniuses at AMC managed to lose over $480 million last year. They ran just
a 2% operating margin ($101M operating profit from $5B+ revenue). They may in
fact kill MoviePass by refusing to budge, but they would be shooting
themselves in the foot doing so. Who else is generating demand for movie
tickets at this scale?

According to their own earnings releases, AMC's USA per-screen attendance
dropped from over 38,000 admissions per screen in 2016, to 29,808 in 2017.
[http://investor.amctheatres.com/file/Index?KeyFile=392398945](http://investor.amctheatres.com/file/Index?KeyFile=392398945)

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gamblor956
_The geniuses at AMC managed to lose over $480 million last year._

You need to learn to read investor reports...The "loss" was entirely driven by
tax law changes that changed how they accounted for certain items on their
books.

"Included in the net loss for the quarter was approximately $310.0 million of
tax expense in our U.S. markets related to the impact of the change in the
U.S. enacted federal income tax rate from 35% to 21% and the impact of a full
valuation allowance on our deferred income tax assets."

 _They may in fact kill MoviePass by refusing to budge, but they would be
shooting themselves in the foot doing so. Who else is generating demand for
movie tickets at this scale?_

Not MoviePass. Last I checked, the movie studios spent a few hundred million
dollars on promoting movies in the US alone.

There's no point in bringing in more MoviePass subscribers if they're losing
money per ticket due to splitting the revenue 3 ways (i.e., adding MoviePass
into the cut) if those viewers don't also buy enough concessions to make up
for the lost revenue. So far, it appears they don't.

That being said, AMC has a subscription pass coming out (or is already out in
some markets) which is like the original MoviePass: a sustainable price that
brings in viewers _and_ incentivizes them to purchase concessions (and
additional tickets).

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listenallyall
Passionate defense of AMC, a company whose stock price has tanked by more than
50% since Jan 1, 2017. ::eyeroll:: Operating income was still just 2% of
revenue last year. 2018-Q1 was strong but if ticket sales continue their
downward trend, will they even make an operating profit? They have more
screens than ever to fill, while variety -- the number of films in wide
release -- is also trending downwards.

The $310m of tax-related expenses in Q4 must be countered against the gain in
the other 3 quarters. Annual "income tax provision" was only $154M for the
year. Earnings before income tax were still -333 million. The Q4 "loss" is
essentially the reduced ability to take future write-offs ("deferred income
tax assets"), since the corporate tax rate was just slashed. Meaning,
executive management failed to maximize the value of deferred taxes, when
rates were higher.

You seem to believe no MoviePass subscribers are buying snacks. Surely there
are abusers of the system, and subscribers' average spend may be lower than
the general public's, but more butts in seats does result in more concession
sales. Do you have evidence otherwise?

Let me know when AMC's subscription is out, and it has 2.5 million
subscribers. Will it be as awesome as Cinemark's Movie Club? $8.99 for 1 whole
movie ticket?

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angryasian
Are these the same millennials that bought snapchat stock at IPO ?

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listenallyall
Could be the ones who bought bitcoins at $3, or $30, or $300.

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xor1
Those mostly weren't millennials, they were gen X libertarians. The ones that
held long enough to make some real money, anyways.

I know one millennial who mined a bunch of BTC when it first came out, and
then sold all of it when it first hit $20.

I also know another millennial who bought a bunch of eth at the IPO, and has
held through everything.

