Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Netflix for Theaters

So, a way to get people into theaters has been giving the industry fits. (They still get paid, and they're upset about it.)

I suspect it will be an even bigger problem for them when the theater fits in your pocket. 

I'll stick my neck out a little here, and say these companies are going to be good shorts: Publicly traded Theater Companies.

Blast from the past, India and their shortage of movie screens. (8 screens per million people -- and they love their movies.)



MoviePass -- Watch any movie in any Theater, any day.

NYPost

In just three weeks, membership spiked to more than 400,000, Lowe told The Post in a recent interview. “I thought it would have taken us more than six to eight months to get as many subscribers as we did in the first two days,” Lowe said.

The New York company tripled its payroll to keep up with demand and has fast-tracked plans for an updated app. One is now due in early 2018 — around the time it plans to launch an IPO.

Under its business model, MoviePass pays theaters the full price of a ticket every time a subscriber sees a movie — so there is no immediate downside for chains like AMC Entertainment, Regal Entertainment or Cinemark.

But the price cut announcement had hardly hit people’s inboxes when pundits and industry insiders were measuring Lowe for a straitjacket.

The price cut, they argue, is doomed for failure, predicting that it will never hold and the company will soon be hemorrhaging cash.

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