
Cinemark announces $8.99/mo. subscription to fill more seats, take on MoviePass - smacktoward
http://beta.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-cinemark-movie-club-20171205-story.html
======
firloop
Seems like this is the direction the industry is going, however the actual
service here is much worse than MoviePass' (seemingly unsustainable) model.
MoviePass is $9.95 for one movie per day.

FTA:

>...customers who pay a monthly fee of $8.99 will receive a credit for one
movie ticket a month. Subscribers can also buy additional tickets for $8.99
each and get a 20% discount on food and drinks.

~~~
ryandrake
That doesn't sound like a subscription. That sounds like you're paying $8.99
for a ticket once a month. Why wouldn't you just buy an $8.99 ticket as-
needed?

~~~
icebraining
Can you get a $8.99 ticket without a subscription?

These models (subscribe and get 1/month free) are not that uncommon - e.g.
Audible. Usually you get a cheaper price, since you're more likely to keep
paying and are therefore more profitable overall. Here even more, due to
potential spending on concessions.

~~~
Jemmeh
Heck, if I go on Bargain Tuesday it's $5.75 and you get a free popcorn with
each ticket. It's a really nice theatre too. Regular price is $9.50, but
that's still not much more.

~~~
prawn
In Australia, US$5.75 would only get you the popcorn. Until a recent price
war, movie tickets for adults have been approaching AU$20.

~~~
praneshp
Heh, quick googling tells me that it's less than 400$ to go to Kuala Lumpur.
If I were so inclined, I'd go once a year, get pirated DVDs of all the movies
I want, have some awesome food and come back.

~~~
curun1r
While you're in Kuala Lumpur, seeing movies in the theater is also quite
reasonable. When I was there last year it was anywhere between RM9.50 and RM22
(~RM4 = 1 USD) depending on theater options. Some of the movies were even
released there prior to the US release.

I'd stopped going to theaters in the US since I don't think most movies are
worth the US price, but I rediscovered how enjoyable it can be...the theaters
were all very modern and comfortable and for some bizarre reason, Malaysians
like to sit all the way in the back and to the sides. I'd have ticket takers
look at me incredulously when I chose seats that would be considered perfect
in the US (dead center, just far enough back to not have to crane my neck).

Totally agree on the food too...I miss roti telur!

~~~
praneshp
Yes many movies are released internationally before they are in the US. When I
lived in India I got to see most major releases before the US release. I
assume Malaysia is a pretty similar market.

Ha, all the way back and to the sides are my favorite type of movie neighbors.

------
djrogers
So for $8.99/mo I can go to one movie a month (which is a little higher than
matinee pricing around here), but only at Cinemark. Option 2 is spend $1/mo
more with MoviePass but I can go to a movie every day, and I can use it at my
local independent theater. Kind of a no-brainer here...

~~~
zwily
Yeah but I’ll be extremely surprised if MoviePass is still in business with
the same model in a couple years.

~~~
27182818284
Although...you can say that about Cinemark or theaters as a whole right now.
AMC Theater stock prices have plunged in the last year. Culture shifts have
killed theaters before in the US like with drive-in theaters which were
decimated by such a shift.

------
nsnick
Cinemark is not in competition with MoviePass. If someone uses a MoviePass,
Cinemark makes money because MoviePass bought a ticket. The reason Cinemark is
losing money is because they have a bad product. They show terrible Hollywood
films, have terrible seats, and terrible food. I still go to the theater, but
when I do, I go to theaters like Alamo Draft House (Austin), Hollywood Theater
(Portland), Manor Theater (Pittsburgh), Broadway Theater (Salt Lake City).

~~~
baddox
My local Cinemark recently remodeled all the rooms to have fantastic reclining
seats and reserved seating. In my experience, the trendy or upscale theaters
like Alamo Draft House have far worse seats and screens. If I want $10 craft
beers I can buy those at a store and drink them at home. The only reason I'm
going to a cinema is to have the best possible comfort, picture, and audio.

~~~
nsnick
Have you been to the Hollywood Theater in Portland? They have a 70mm film
projector something no Cinemark has. You can see movies like Dunkirk in the
format the director intended.

~~~
baddox
There's certainly an appeal to specific formats like 70mm, but that comes
along fairly rarely. I haven't been to Portland, but I have seen 70mm films in
classic theaters. They're rarely comfortable, the sound usually sucks, and the
lack of stadium seating can be brutal, but you're there for the insane effort
that went into end-to-end 70mm production.

Of course, I saw Dunkirk in IMAX 70mm projection at the Metreon in San
Francisco, which is a state of the art screening room, but that will probably
only ever happen every few years. Sadly the Metreon recently remodeled with
completely terrible seats (only in the IMAX room), so I'm rarely tempted to go
there.

~~~
notte
Seats in the IMAX room is indeed very bad. It’s sad because the screen is 2nd
largest in North America. But your only memory of the movie becomes how much
pain your back and behind are. Try the shoreline cinemark in MV, very comfy
seats!

~~~
baddox
The Metreon IMAX is such a shame. They installed that incredible new digital
projector (Dolby laser, I believe) but at the same time ruined the seats.

------
cjlars
It seems as though the cinema is finally entering a secular contraction. Home
video hardware is getting cheaper and higher quality. Content going straight
to netflix/hbo/hulu is getting better. And sitting in front of a movie sucking
down 32oz of sugar water and fat soaked popcorn doesn't sound quite so
appealing these days.

I'll see the new Star Wars, no doubt about that, but besides that I can't
remember a time in my life when I went to the movies less than I do now. For
the same price, I can get a nice meal out and watch a movie at home.

~~~
jjaredsimpson
Value proposition on theaters is very low.

The popcorn isn't even good. I want butter and salt evenly distributed
throughout the entire bucket, not a disgustingly over seasoning top inch, and
a bland inedible bottom 90%.

The cheapest matinee is a Tuesday 5.75 about 20m from me. It's just not worth
it at all. Serialized dramas that I binge watch are killing movies. Attention
economy continues to forces changes in old media.

~~~
SippinLean
I ask them to fill it up halfway, then I add "butter," return to the counter
to have it filled the rest of the way, and return for a second "butter" round
to ensure even coverage.

~~~
joombaga
Not everyone has self-service butter.

~~~
ahjushi
Or just ask the person filling it up to do it for you.

~~~
DKnoll
Yup. Fill with corn halfway, butter, then shake the bag. Fill to the top and
butter again. Don't butter with less than half the bag filled or you will soak
the bottom and get soggy corn. If the theatre won't do this, go to an
independent.

------
smaili
> The Plano, Texas-based company on Tuesday said customers who pay a monthly
> fee of $8.99 will receive a credit for one movie ticket a month.

> It’s also the cinema industry’s first direct answer to MoviePass, a New York
> start-up that offers unlimited movies in theaters for $9.95 a month.

How do they expect this to be successful when the average customer should be
able to understand 1/day > 1/month?

~~~
cwyers
Because one per day is completely unsustainable and they only need to last
longer than MoviePass burns VC money and fails?

~~~
KallDrexx
It's only unsustainable because of the current royalty structure. Most of the
money actual theaters make is on concessions and I'm more likely to buy
concessions when I'm not paying $15 per person for a single movie ticket.

~~~
gotrecruit
i have always heard that movies make most of their profit from concessions. if
that is the case, i'm not at all surprised they're failing. i've always
brought my own snacks because they're cheaper and/or tastier, and i rarely get
given shit for it. the minute they make me feel uncomfortable about it, i stop
patronizing that theatre.

~~~
mywittyname
Concession prices are why I stopped going to the movies. Unless I eat right
before hand, I'm going to want a snack during the movie, but I'm not going to
pay $15 for a Coke and some popcorn.

------
schlipity
How does this take on Moviepass? MoviePass lets you watch 1 movie per day,
whereas this is 1 movie per month with a very modest discount on concessions.

~~~
madamelic
Yeah, now the concessions will only have 240% markup. Wooo.

~~~
mattl
Concessions are how most theaters make any money. What do you suggest instead?

~~~
DigitalJack
Considering this as fact (that concessions make the money), I would think a
theatre would do everything in it's power to make purchasing and consuming
concessions the most pleasant aspect of movie going that they possibly could.

Having to juggle sodas, popcorn, napkins, etc., is always an adventure in the
negative sense when I go to the movies.

------
ada1981
I'm confused why Movie Theatres don't actively promote MoviePass to their
customers.

Isn't MoviePass paying full ticket value to the theatres? They should be
offering people discounts to show their movie pass cards on concessions, and
otherwise get people showing up for free subsidized movies while they can.

Am I missing something?

~~~
cosmie
Their concern is the long term consequence, not the short term benefit.

> and otherwise get people showing up for free subsidized movies while they
> can. The issue comes in when the "free subsidized movies" ends, but
> consumers are left with the expectation that the economics of movie sales
> can support that model. If MoviePass's business model turns out to be
> unsustainable and shuts down, all of the consumers that have gotten used to
> it will suddenly baulk at paying retail rates again. Rates that, while
> discussed as expensive, were accepted as the status quo prior to MoviePass.

The alternative also isn't pleasant for the theater: The economics of
MoviePass work out, but now MoviePass has the relationship with the consumer.
As it gets more popular, MoviePass gets more market power to dictate
discounted rates with your theater, with the implicit threat of blacklisting
your theater from MoviePass locations if you don't play ball. While in theory
that doesn't hurt the theater, since such a high percentage of box office
revenue goes to distributors rather than to the theater, distributors won't
take that squeeze either. They'll either shift back to fixed-cost film
distribution (which theaters don't like, because it's risky) or start adding
in more and more onerous minimum guarantees to contracts to make up the
absolute dollar difference. i.e. if your distributor gets 95% of box office
revenue, slashing ticket prices from $10 to $5 only costs you $0.25 in revenue
but it costs them $4.75. While you can make up your very minimal lost revenue
from concessions easily, they can't. They're not going to eat that quietly, no
matter how much additional volume you generate.

~~~
ada1981
I'm not so sure this is always the case.

If MP tanks, I prob go back to my baseline of maybe 4 movies a year, but it's
possible I'd be used to seeing more movies to I'd go more often. I probably
wouldn't end up going less than my previous MP viewing.

Movies theatres want the popcorn / soda sales so it doesn't matter much how MP
negotiates the price, since they don't get much of that anyway.

~~~
cosmie
> so it doesn't matter much how MP negotiates the price, since they don't get
> much of that anyway

But it does matter. Because there's always the potential for the theater to go
from barely getting any ticket revenue to _actively losing money for every
ticket sold_. Concession sales then start subsidizing box office revenue to
pay distributors, eating away at your one profit center.

Take two scenarios for how distributors, the ones that take most of the ticket
revenue, make money:

Scenario A, the status quo: 1000 tickets a day x $10/each x 95% of ticket
revenue = $9,500/day going to the distributor

Scenario B, assuming MP is a raging success, has captured the majority of the
movie-going market, and is able to muscle the theater to give it a 50%
discount on ticket rates: (200 non-MP tickets x $10/each + 800 tickets x
$5/each) * 95% of ticket revenue = $5,700/day in revenue going to the
distributor

Even though the distributor still keeps the majority of box office revenue by
percentage, that's a substantial discount to what they're used to and they're
not going to just let the theater pass that loss off to them completely. So
now, instead of just 95% of box office sales, they want 95% with a minimum
guarantee, or want concession added into the percentage distribution, which
could work out to paying substantially out of concession profit if your ticket
sales don't hit that minimum (basically moving the risk back onto the theater,
which is exactly what theaters so enthusiastically tried to avoid by moving
from fixed-fee distribution to percentage-based distribution).

While MP would also theoretically increase foot traffic to the theater, and
thereby making up the loss in revenue per ticket by a higher quantity of lower
revenue tickets being sold, there's only so much unused capacity during peak
time already that there's a physical limit to how much additional volume an
existing theater can absorb. If MP increased viewership during off-peak times
when the theater's are mostly empty (like midday, midweek showings), _then_ it
might be beneficial to both the distributor and theater owner. But otherwise,
one of those parties tends to come out of it worse than before MP.

~~~
ada1981
I appreciate the detail and depth here.

My intuition is still that the correct move is to enjoy the revenue
opportunity.

Granted, that is based on a "MoviePass won't last" assumption.

------
perfmode
MoviePass is a data play, right? After signing up recently, I read their terms
of service and it seems like they exist in order to build customer profiles
and harvest data:

[https://www.moviepass.com/content/terms](https://www.moviepass.com/content/terms)
See "18\. Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information"

It's not that I object to this particular instance of this practice. I, for
one, am willing to trade my movie-going data for cheap movie tickets. However,
I am genuinely confused about how they intend to keep it going.

~~~
stickydink
What data is MoviePass able to collect that Fandango doesn't have access to?

~~~
perfmode
Since they’ve offer such a great deal, you’ll probably use their service for
every movie that you can.

With fandango, you have to make a conscious decision to use them as an
intermediary every time.

It’s reasonable to expect that MoviePass will, over time, have a more
comprehensive (less sparse) record of movies you’ve gone to theaters to see.

------
sp332
The more I think about MoviePass the less I like the model. In
[http://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-business-
model-2017...](http://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-business-model-2017-8)
they say they're trying to offset high ticket prices in some places with lower
ticket prices in other places. What kind of business model tries to shift
money from places that have less to places that have more?

Edit: had the last part backwards, d'oh

~~~
e1ven
I think their ideas about a business model are hogwash.

Even in places where the movies are $6/month, they would need huge numbers of
people to sign up, and use the service 0-1 times per month, month after
month..

That doesn't seem realistic. Even with their new contract model, I don't see
this working.

I don't see how they could possibly survive without inventing a new revenue
model.

In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying my VC subsidized movies :)

~~~
yalph
Isnt this the “communism” they are talking about all the time? Rich paying for
the poor?

~~~
sp332
Don't you have that backwards? They require people with lower ticket prices to
pay the same amount as people with higher ticket prices. So the "poor" (or
people the movie theaters think won't pay more money, anyway) are paying for
the "rich".

~~~
yalph
Oh yeah thats right but I was talking about VCs subsidizing our movies, taxi
rodes, food. Its kind of nice.

~~~
fgggrr
Hehe, yes. At least before they gather up all our personal data, secret habits
and sell them to the highest bidder.

------
Touche
Still waiting for the ability to purchase a new movie from home. Can't think
of a single reason why it hasn't happened yet. Charge $50 if you want, people
would pay it. And it would probably actually recreate that water-cooler
conversations that don't really happen all that often any more.

~~~
rhino369
>Can't think of a single reason why it hasn't happened yet.

Piracy.

Any home version of a movie would be ripped and put on warez in hours after
release in 4k. I'd never go to the theater again. But CAMs and TS suck.

~~~
Touche
Solid point. I'm really surprised this doesn't already happen.

You could argue that this hasn't hurt on-demand services like iTunes and
Amazon Video, where people could torrent the videos instead of buying/renting
them. With piracy you're always going to lose some small number of customers,
but if you make renting them legally easy, people will pay.

~~~
rhino369
They probably balance the cost of piracy vs. the additional sales.

Sure VoD, streaming, and DVD/BR allows piracy, but it also creates many more
sales.

People are already paying $10-15 per person to see a movie in the theater. I'm
sure some consultant concluded the new sales from pre-release home rentals
won't cancel out lost ticket sales and piracy.

They also have to worry about theaters, which are a key part of their busines
model but aren't under studio control. If 50% of customers stop going to the
movies because they rent at home, that might make theater unviable or make the
theatres demand larger cuts of profits.

And I also imagine they are worried about brand dilution. Movies and TV have
never been more similar. TV might even have better overall quality now. But
movies can charge 12 bucks for 2 hours and TV is having a hard time charging
12 bucks for unlimited everything.

If Avengers 4 is available on your local TV, is it still a movie? Will people
still want to pay 50 bucks to stream it? Or are they going to want to pay
3.99?

~~~
Touche
The more I think about it, I really doubt that piracy plays much into it
because, like I said, that already happens with post-theater movies. You can
offset the piracy damage by increasing the ticket price or by selling more
tickets.

I would imagine that you could do _both_. Having to go to a theater is a real
blocker. These stats from 2014 said on average 3.7 tickets were sold per
person, per year. [https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MPAA-
Theatri...](https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MPAA-Theatrical-
Market-Statistics-2014.pdf) That means on any given weekend there's less than
a 10% chance that someone will go to the theater. I would imagine having
movies available at home would at least double that number.

And since presumably people will watch these movies socially you could charge
much more for them; $50 or $60 per movie doesn't sound unreasonable at all,
that's assuming between 4-5 people are watching it together. I wouldn't be
surprised if it could go even higher.

Consider going to the theater where you're probably going to buy some food
before (either at a restaurant or concessions, or both), with only 2 people
you are coming close to, or exceeding, that $60 figure anyways.

------
kchoudhu
I forget which theater chain it was, but I had one of these subscriptions when
I was in London alone, semi-broke and super bored for an entire summer back in
2007.

I must have seen every damned movie that came out over a three month period.
It was awesome.

------
lebanon_tn
This is useless if the quality of movies coming out remains the same. I
usually only make it out to see a movie every 3-4 months. It's hard to find
something worth a 2-3 hours of my time.

~~~
choward
It's also useless because no matter what the theater does, nothing beats the
experience of being at home.

It's not like a restaurant. A different atmosphere is a plus with restaurants.
Not with theaters: you stare at a screen with the lights off the whole time.
Also, with a restaurant you are served food without doing any work. Sure,
watching a movie in the theater requires no work, but it's also trivial to
play a movie at home.

~~~
singingboyo
IMO this is very dependant on the theatre.

The ones here have fancy seating, better sound, 3D, etc. For many movies, it's
very much a better experience. If you're watching the bog-standard 2D version
of the latest comedy film? Yeah, sure, home is better. Latest action/superhero
movie? Unless I spend thousands to put together a home theatre, the added bits
at the theatre just make it much better.

Mind you, from the descriptions I've heard of other theatres, I'm mildly
amazed by how nice the ones around here are - especially since Cineplex more
or less has a monopoly. I suspect they're just gouging us on ticket prices
(and snacks, though if you do it right it's not too bad). Still, its nice to
go on occasion.

------
snug
Save 20% on a $10 soda!

------
redleggedfrog
Awesome. $9 a month to see the crap they shovel into the theaters.

And now that they get paid regardless of whether I go or not I fully expect
the crap to get even worse.

------
atmz
Reminder about Cinemark: \- they sued Aurora victims for legal costs \- their
founder is a donor to Roy Moore's campaign

~~~
lozaning
Because the winning side in a civil lawsuit is allowed to recover its legal
costs from the losing side. If the victims wouldn't have brought their insane
suit first, Cinemark wouldn't have had costs to recover.

If you bite off more than you can chew don't blame anyone but yourself when
you choke.

------
RandomInteger4
This seems like a dark marketing pattern:

Pay $7.50 normally or experience the deluxe super duper savers package for
$8.99! WOOOO!!!

------
erickhill
Hmmm... $8.99/mo childcare. Tempting.

~~~
chipperyman573
Yeah once a month for an hour and a half.

------
Frye
It has been out for like 3 minutes and the price has already gone from
$6.95/month to $8.99/month to $9.95/month.

