Re: MoviePass is $10 a month now
Algren wrote:
It's not about people buying tickets and not watching the movie. They couldn't care less if they have empty seats. It's about ensuring as much as they can that the people that are buying the tickets will most likely attend and buy loads of popcorn and drinks.
It is for MoviePass. If I understood correctly they buy the tickets at full price and aren't connected to theater chains/movie studios so they don't get any proceeds from drinks/popcorn. Somebody here said they're in the collecting personal data business which is why they can take a hit on the tickets.
So $10 won't cover for that undecided Joe sitting in his sofa who buys the ticket for Saturday but decides not to go, but then buys ticket for Sunday and thinks he might go then. MoviePass would have to pay for the price of ticket both times (remember that undecided Joe only gave them $10 and doesn't really care if it costs them $10 no matter how many tickets he buys or more, or if maybe he took away seats for some people who wanted to go watch the movie but it was soldout) and that's not how you run the business. Or it is if you plan to run it to the ground.
So it makes sense they tried to protect themselves from people abusing this deal by the simple fact that if you really want to watch the movie you need to be close to the theater anyway, so you can only buy the ticket if you're actually planning to go. It really doesn't discomfort or dissuade anyone if they want to see the movie.