I was just teasing. I wouldn't see a film with a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score (unless it went up?) on a bet!
I'm in my third month of membership and I too have read about their hopeful business model(s), which makes me wonder why there's no rating and comment feature. Just because I WENT to a movie doesn't mean I liked it. Also, it's a little frustrating their lack of a family option. Sure, there are ways around it, but that's not the point. It's a cool service and I hope they can turn a profit. Before, I saw a movie in the theatre once every 3 or so years. I've been 6 times in the last two months...and one of those was to take some friends out to see Tag which I saw with Movie Pass' dime two days prior.
Anybody have Surge pricing in their area yet? Curious what you’re seeing, if you do. I checked my app this evening, but there was nothing - not even AntMan, Papa Roach and the Termite Twins with an extra fee. I tend to skip those flicks, personally, but figured they’d be the first to get hit.
Surge pricing means I have to explain more of this to my mother. (I pay for her pass and set it up on her phone.) I'll just tell her to pay since it'll go on my Credit Card - and it'll be worth whatever the cost is to not have to hear her complain The AMC pass is looking better since I never see more than 3 movies a week and Ould like to see films in Dolby Cinema when available. Or Movie Pass could go to $19.99 a month but work everywhere.
Update: My mother's account got an email saying she'll have to upload a photo of the stub EVERY TIME she uses the service from now on. And if she misses one then she'll have her service cancelled. She has had the card for 4 months now, and started to use it more than once a week just recently. I predict MoviePass will lose a BUNCH of "normal" user and be stuck with technologically literate people who will use every opportunity to game the system. Then it might be acquired by another company - or more likely just go bust. Because they've taken something where the main attraction was ease of use and made it much more difficult to use.
You've got it flipped around. MoviePass has been forced to implement all these changes because of all the scammers. The point is to make the service less scammable and less desirable to all the scammers. It sucks for those of us who are using it normally and according to the terms of service. But crooks always ruin good things for everyone.
The main attraction is seeing a bunch of movies for cheap. People will jump through a few hoops to do that.
I disagree to a point. They want to see movies at a cheap price AND have it be simple. Like show up to any theater, do the thing on the phone, and go in and watch the movie. Adding SURGE PRICING is only to helps Movie Pass and hurts consumers. >MoviePass has been forced to implement all these changes because of all the scammers. The point is to make the service less scammable and less desirable to all the scammers. Well they set up the system as a credit card so they could skirt around movie theaters wishes, and now the pain is being felt by scammers AND non scammers exactly the same. But my 70 year old mother will likely deny access to the camera because she's been told to do that 99% of the time, or forget to upload a ticket stub, or not understand what surge pricing is and get upset with the experience. A scammer is just going to add a second MoviePass account for $10, add it to a cheap phone or tablet they have, buy an extra ticket, take a photo of it, then scalp it to someone in the ticket line and use the money for concessions. This does not stop that scam. And unless they add a mandatory biometric identification ro selfie this won't stop people sharing a pass with more than 1 person. Make no mistake - Movie Pass purposefully set the price below what it should be to try to gain customers - now they're trying to nickel and dime their way to profitability. I feel they should just raise the price to a sustainable level that's easy to understand - because that's the attraction of the pass to me - especially buying one for my mother.
It occurred to me shortly after reading their "surge pricing" idea that - if they can last - this could seriously add to their "clout" in the industry. Think about it. They've been trying to involve themselves more with movie production (American Animals; Gotti) in recent months. Now... Imagine a scenario where two movies with comparable box office potential are both opening on a Friday night. Let's say one is from a studio that MP is "friendly" with, while the other has been hostile to their concept. MP slaps "surge" pricing on the hostile studio's film while keeping their regular deal on the other film. What would happen? Many of the three million MP holders would likely avoid the "surge-priced" film in favor of the other film and MP could conceivably dictate the box office winner that weekend. Since Opening Weekend is pretty crucial in this biz, that could make a difference in how their business is treated. My friends and I have already discussed that a sure victim of surge pricing - the first one likely to affect us - will likely be the upcoming Mission Impossible film (probably a stupid flick, but the stunts look incredible). Somehow I think that Paramount Pictures is going to be mighty displeased if that film "loses" millions (aka "underperforms") on opening weekend, because we MP cheapskates won't pony up a surge fee - but I can easily see it happening. I know my first thought was: this surge pricing is annoying as hell. But, on second thought, I think it's as much about flexing their muscles at the box office as it is on driving their customers to alternative movies/showtimes.
So good for their business but bad for the consumer? I see a pattern. I can't imagine this company being in business for a decade or more - this is likely a experiment that will fail.
Yup. They’ve shown a willingness to do this in the past, when they - for a short time, iirc - stopped allowing their customers to use MP at some selected (but very popular) theatres. There, too, I think they were sending a warning to those theatre owners who were most openly hostile to their business plan. Agree. But they’ve already blown up the industry, ala Napster (which didn’t last long, either) did with Music. I’m not saying I LIKE surge pricing, or snapping pics of my ticket stub, but if it ultimately leads to the destruction of the $10/$12/$14 movie ticket, I’m all in. If I’m right, and they can influence box office numbers, that could be a step towards their survival.
Again, as I pointed out several times in this thread, MoviePass's model or some variation thereof, is sustainable. Two chains in England offer truly unlimited viewing for 18 pounds a month. Yeah, MoviePass will probably be the pioneer with the arrows in its back, but some variation of unlimited film going at a fixed price is going to come to America.
But there's definitely a difference in the sustainability of a chain discounting their own tickets, and MoviePass paying out of pocket as a third party for every ticket. Sustainability will only come to pass when MoviePass is getting substantial revenue from the theaters, who obviously have no interest in providing that revenue, and won't unless MoviePass gets so big and influential that they have no choice. IMO, This is a good idea for a theater chain. It's an awful idea for a third party.
If they do go under, it will be very interesting to see what kind of overall box office impact it has. I’ve probably seen about 50 films since signing up last fall - about 47 more than I otherwise would have. Not saying I’m a typical customer, but I suspect the industry could see fairly substantial losses if people no longer have this option.
"Surge pricing" is in effect now in my app and I suspect it's not "SURGE" at all, but simply raising the price for films during their first few weekends. I was thinking about seeing a movie late last night and checked my app around 7:00PM. That's 7:00PM on a Sunday night. The films with surge pricing were PER MOVIE, not showing. So every showing for each of these films was "surged": Ant-Man and The Wasp, Skyscraper, The First Purge,Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. Now, I did not go see the movies last night, but I find it very hard to believe than ANY of those films was anywhere near close to selling out the shows after 9:00PM. So I call BS on "surge pricing." If they named it "We charge more for popular films because we can, because you are stupid, and becuase won't notice your $9.95 pass actually cost you $19.95 if you use it for new films" then I'll agree.
Yeah, it hit our market this weekend, too. Looking at the app early in the day, none of the films were "surge"-tagged, but looking later in the day, all the ones you mentioned were (thankfully, none of those are films I have any interest in seeing). I'm guessing maybe they're only allowing X number of MP members to purchase tix/showing for any of the bigger films. So, once "X" (20? 30?) have been sold, the surge pricing kicks in...?
Have yet to see any "Surge" pricing, but then my wife and I stick to our so-far successful strategy of seeing blockbusters on weekdays and art films and documentaries on weekends .
Uh oh, is the end near? The MoviePass outage was caused by the company temporarily running out of cash, and it borrowed $5 million to turn the service back on
When a company can't deliver its service because it has no money.... yes, I think that's a pretty good sign the end is near. If not here!
