AMC Launches 'Stubs A-List' MoviePass Competitor for $19.99 Per Month, Launching June 26

[redneckitengineer]

I’ve been on MoviePass for 6 months now. Bought it back when it was an annual special. I’ve gotten my money back 5 times already. As someone who travels for a living I can’t always guarantee a specific chain availability so it’s not for me AMC. But heck even if MoviePass was unlimited at $20/m I’d still be in. I see 3-4 movies a week when the good ones are out. MoviePass until it dies for me. When it does, I’m back to $1.50 redbox. I’ll change my habits before I accept a price increase.

 

[cmwade77]

This is just AMC's deathblow to put MoviePass out of business. Once MoviePass is gone, AMC will no longer offer this subscription and let people play out their last months of it....then it'll be back to business as usual.

Honestly, this won't impact MoviePass very much, if at all, they have a lower price point with more movies per month. AMC's program does add IMAX and such to the mix, so there may be a small demographic that will go for that and the fact that they can rewatch the same movie more than once or more than one movie per day, but the reality is for most MoviePass will remain the better deal. MoviePass does work with the dine in theaters, so that part isn't an issue.

Now as to if MoviePass is a sustainable business model or not, there are several things they can do to make it more sustainable:

• Work with movie theaters to allow concession purchases from within the app, then moviepass would get a small cut of the concessions.
• Have affiliate links to items that are related to movies you have seen, this could be anything from toys to DVDs/Blurays of the movies, etc.
• Sell aggregated data about movie watching preferences, which could be very valuable for the movie industry as MoviePass removes prices from the mix.

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I don't doubt that this is AMC's response to moviepass and that they're planning on MP going out of business. But I also don't think they'll abandon it afterwards.

A couple of interesting things I noticed on the website that weren't mentioned here... First, you have to "lock in" to a 3-month commitment. Also, you're "guaranteed" that your membership price won't increase for 12 months. Which leads me to believe that they plan on increasing pricing somewhere down the line... probably when moviepass is gone.

You also don't earn points on the tickets you reserve through the program, only on the monthly membership, using MoviePass, you earn credits on the tickets you purchase. MoviePass also has no minimum (unless you buy their annual plan of course) and MovePass has the same promise that they won't raise their price for 12 months, so it does leave them open to raising their prices as well.

 

[illmatic41]

Honestly, this won't impact MoviePass very much, if at all, they have a lower price point with more movies per month. AMC's program does add IMAX and such to the mix, so there may be a small demographic that will go for that and the fact that they can rewatch the same movie more than once or more than one movie per day, but the reality is for most MoviePass will remain the better deal. MoviePass does work with the dine in theaters, so that part isn't an issue.

Now as to if MoviePass is a sustainable business model or not, there are several things they can do to make it more sustainable:

• Work with movie theaters to allow concession purchases from within the app, then moviepass would get a small cut of the concessions.
• Have affiliate links to items that are related to movies you have seen, this could be anything from toys to DVDs/Blurays of the movies, etc.
• Sell aggregated data about movie watching preferences, which could be very valuable for the movie industry as MoviePass removes prices from the mix.

MoviePass will always remain the better deal, but the question is how much more can they sustain as they continually bleed cash. HMNY already revealed they don't have enough to keep this up through the summer. While Ted Farnsworth said they have 300 million in borrowed capital so he's not worried about going under, their moves to dilute their stock valuation and buying movie companies and investing in distribution of films seem like desperate moves. AMC knows all this and anyway to stop MoviePass from reaching 5 million subscribers(there might be some payout for additional funding from investors such as Oath and others if they hit this amount) before the end of the year, would keep their mission on taking MoviePass out. Believe me, I want MoviePass to succeed, but with AMC announcing this a month after the HMNY financials reveal, it just seems suspect after they said a subscription model would never work.

 

[JaredFromHawaii]

Never heard of either of these services until today. But MoviePass seems very intriguing.

Can you use a “first month free” code/link for MoviePass? $9.95 to keep it going after a month. Great deal! Really hope MoviePass can survive and thrive.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

I like how AMC was complaining to get on board with MoviePass and “didn’t see how it was sustainable,” only to release a version of their own. *eye roll*

That being said it is more convenient seeing as I don’t have to be near the theater to order my ticket, can reserve ahead of time and see IMAX/Dolby (which, sidenote, Dolby is AMAZING and everyone should watch movies in that format), etc.

But I’ll say for us Millennials, $19.99 is probably still too high. Sure, cue the “but think of all the perks over MoviePass,” comments and I think most would still choose MoviePass’ limitations for the cheaper price. At this point theaters need to just focus on getting people back in the doors and I think this is a great first step but a lot of it has to do with just all around crappy movies being released on the regular (because people will dish out ~$15 to see blockbuster hits) and the price of concessions (because do I REALLY need to pay $20+ for a few snacks???)

I think $14.99 is the way to go here now that there’s competition.

MoviePass isn't sustainable because it was basically buying movie tickets at full price each time some one went to see a movie. At more than $15 per movie at many theaters, it loses money from the first movie. AMC can (probably) afford to do this because they can take a little loss in tickets and make up for it in food/drink sales.

 

[dannyyankou]

Can you use a “first month free” code/link for MoviePass? $9.95 to keep it going after a month. Great deal! Really hope MoviePass can survive and thrive.

Oooh, I’ll look into that. I’ll scout the internet for referral links.

 

[sidewinder3000]

How?

If anything it devalues the price of admission. And even if this and MoviePass collapse people will be used to one small flat fee for one movie a day

There is no going back, it’s like the Spotifyification or Netflixication for movie theaters

I don’t think either of you has it right. MoviePass pays the theatre 100% FULL PRICE. So from a theatre’s standpoint, there’s no need to raise or lower prices because there’s not any market pressure to force either move.
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MoviePass isn't sustainable because it was basically buying movie tickets at full price each time some one went to see a movie. At more than $15 per movie at many theaters, it loses money from the first movie. AMC can (probably) afford to do this because they can take a little loss in tickets and make up for it in food/drink sales.

If you think for a minute that MoviePass gives a rats ass about taking a loss based on customer subscription revenue and expenses paid to theatres, you’re missing the point. They are:
A) counting on a decent amount of slippage (people signing up for a service and then not using it) which is part & parcel of all subscription models
B) counting on bringing in gobs if money by selling people’s data back to movie/media companies and advertisers.

Profit based on subscriber revenue & expenses is absolutely not their business model.

 

[thadoggfather]

I don’t think either of you has it right. MoviePass pays the theatre 100% FULL PRICE. So from a theatre’s standpoint, there’s no need to raise or lower prices because there’s not any market pressure to force either move.
[doublepost=1529550548][/doublepost]
If you think for a minute that MoviePass gives a rats ass about taking a loss based on customer subscription revenue and expenses paid to theatres, you’re missing the point. They are:
A) counting on a decent amount of slippage (people signing up for a service and then not using it) which is part & parcel of all subscription models
B) counting on bringing in gobs if money by selling people’s data back to movie/media companies and advertisers.

Profit based on subscriber revenue & expenses is absolutely not their business model.

Right, nah i do actually know that.

But in terms of what the consumer is willing to pay, which has been heavily subsidized by these services, there is no point of return in that regard. People aren’t going to go from $9.99 a month, and $120 a year, to a thousand+ dollars when they stopped going a lot because quality of films isn’t on par with the out of pocket price / time and gas spent to get there and watch trailers and a later start, etc.

Cant go back to Napster not existing, that’s why we have Spotify stream business models that work

 

[JohnApples]

You also don't earn points on the tickets you reserve through the program, only on the monthly membership, using MoviePass, you earn credits on the tickets you purchase. MoviePass also has no minimum (unless you buy their annual plan of course) and MovePass has the same promise that they won't raise their price for 12 months, so it does leave them open to raising their prices as well.

Just want to point out that earning AMC Stubs points through MoviePass violates their T&C, and if they catch on, you will be flagged/removed from the program. Some users on Reddit have reported receiving the following email:

This email is to inform you that your AMC Stubs account was flagged because it was earning rewards using the MoviePass program. We would like to remind you that purchases through subscription services such as MoviePass are not eligible for AMC Stubs participation, per the Terms & Conditions that you entered into when you became an AMC Stubs member. If this activity continues, your account may be deactivated due to suspected fraud. You may review the Terms & Conditions on our website here: http://www.amctheatres.com/amcstubs/terms-and-conditions

 

[tennisproha]

It's called Stubs A-List, not "Stubs-A-List." Stubs is the name of their existing rewards program.

Yeah, "stubs-a-list" kind of has a fairly different ring and feel to it.

Should've named it "Stubs A Lot". They really missed an opportunity here.

 

[JaredFromHawaii]

Message Deleted

 

[joekun]

I got MoviePass in October last year. I’ve watched 17 movies with it, but looking through my history if I had to pay full price I might have gone to 4 of them. At $15 a month I’d be iffy on the proposition of a subscription, but that’s still better than breaking even on 12 movies a year. At $20 I’m not interested and would just wait for rental, or free checkout from the library.

 

[aneftp]

MoviePass isn't sustainable because it was basically buying movie tickets at full price each time some one went to see a movie. At more than $15 per movie at many theaters, it loses money from the first movie. AMC can (probably) afford to do this because they can take a little loss in tickets and make up for it in food/drink sales.

In big cities it’s not sustainable.

But I work in a smaller town (30 min outside big town) occasionally and off peak amc movie tickets are only $4.25 and $6.75 for night time movies. So MoviePass is sustainable outside of big cities with their pricing model.

 

[usarioclave]

Realistically speaking, MoviePass wants to become the Spotify/Uber of moviegoing. What does that mean? Here are their long-term goals:

• MoviePass is going to drive a ton of traffic to movies, which might give them a lot of pricing ability. If they can buy movie tickets in bulk, for example, they could reduce their back-end costs. If they can demonstrate that they can steer traffic to a given theatre, well, that'll be better. The question is, do theatre want to be more like airlines, where the seat prices can vary? Is it better to have a seat at $4 than an empty seat?
• MoviePass can become the way for people to discover and promote movies. MoviePass users are basically influencers, in that anyone that watches that many movies by definition loves them and talks about them, so you can push movies to them and they'll tell everyone.
• One odd thing about movies is that some movies make more money after the theatre release; box-office numbers important for marketing reasons. Maybe MoviePass can be used to drive up the box office, which makes it more attractive in the video/streaming market.

The direct demographic information is interesting to studios, but the studio system can't really take advantage of it due to the way they're structured. They have that already anyway.

What if Netflix bought them or made their own? It'd essentially be end-to-end streaming, from box office to home to mobile.

 

[WarHeadz]

I like how AMC was complaining to get on board with MoviePass and “didn’t see how it was sustainable,” only to release a version of their own. *eye roll*

Moviepass definitely isn't sustainable. If you read the article, they made it $19.99 because they consider that a sustainable price. Which makes perfect sense.

But I’ll say for us Millennials, $19.99 is probably still too high.

Lol speak for yourself. We're pushing 30, if $19.99 is too high for you then you're doing something wrong lol

 

[stoopkidblues]

Moviepass definitely isn't sustainable. If you read the article, they made it $19.99 because they consider that a sustainable price. Which makes perfect sense.



Lol speak for yourself. We're pushing 30, if $19.99 is too high for you then you're doing something wrong lol

Lol, “consider” it a sustainable price. This seems to suggest they will be increasing the price of the subscription in the future so would you be willing to pay, say $29.99, if AMC considers that sustainable? What’s more, MoviePass is accepted at more theaters, this is only for AMC so what about locations that don’t have AMC theaters? MoviePass was the first to do this so do we really not expect them to change their business model slightly that *would* make it sustainable? (Also, lets not act like they aren’t going to make a killing selling off user data that almost no one else will have access to).

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching in AMC theaters but the “perks” just don’t really outweigh that of MoviePass (for the average consumer on a large scale). It’s a great deal if you’re already a Stubs member, sure, but I don’t see Millennials/Gen Z/Baby Boomers/whoever dropping their MoviePass subs for it or not being more enticed by the $9.99 competitive offer (remember when MoviePass was $30/month? I wonder what happened there/s). MoviePass has already announced it’s doing a family plan package in a few months, does AMC have a version of its own? Or does everyone in the family pay $19.99/month?

At the least, maybe AMC should do something like Sinemia and offer tiered pricing starting at $14.99 that maybe only allows you to see 1 movie a week, etc. then offer better rewards as it increases. But either way I’m glad to finally see the same competition in the film industry as the other entertainment avenues like music. It should be a win-win for us all tbh!

 

[aneftp]

Realistically speaking, MoviePass wants to become the Spotify/Uber of moviegoing. What does that mean? Here are their long-term goals:

• MoviePass is going to drive a ton of traffic to movies, which might give them a lot of pricing ability. If they can buy movie tickets in bulk, for example, they could reduce their back-end costs. If they can demonstrate that they can steer traffic to a given theatre, well, that'll be better. The question is, do theatre want to be more like airlines, where the seat prices can vary? Is it better to have a seat at $4 than an empty seat?
• MoviePass can become the way for people to discover and promote movies. MoviePass users are basically influencers, in that anyone that watches that many movies by definition loves them and talks about them, so you can push movies to them and they'll tell everyone.
• One odd thing about movies is that some movies make more money after the theatre release; box-office numbers important for marketing reasons. Maybe MoviePass can be used to drive up the box office, which makes it more attractive in the video/streaming market.

The direct demographic information is interesting to studios, but the studio system can't really take advantage of it due to the way they're structured. They have that already anyway.

What if Netflix bought them or made their own? It'd essentially be end-to-end streaming, from box office to home to mobile.

Yes. Good reasons for MoviePass to exist. But for the same reasons. The amc and regals want to stop movie pass before they become so big and powerful and impose their market share by driving down prices.

Happens in all industries. Remember I got could buy new cars directly from third party located in Delaware who could sell near cost due to low overhead rather than through dealers in 1998/1999. The auto dealers sued in court and won. Cause it’s end game for them cause that would drive down profits.