Moviepass: pay $10/mo, see one movie a day in theaters

Royal

Connoisseur of Exotic Pictures
15,077
10,641
i don't understand, what is the advantage in doing it that"

According to Moviepass they're purchasing tickets for resale. It's why they prohibit having multiple accounts to discourage that kind of abuse.
 

spronk

FPS noob
22,573
25,590
i don't understand, what is the advantage in doing it that"

Well. its complicated. Some people will do it to buy premium tickets, like if you have 3 moviepass cards you could buy two IMAX tickets and split the charges for 2 tickets among 3 cards (or just pay the difference in cash if its 1 imax + 1 moviepass card). Some people may be reselling although that seems kind of ludicrous, is there some weird underground movieticket biz really?

The majority case are being fucked over by clueless movie theaters. For years we are used to "please give me 4 tickets, 2 adults 2 children. Here is my credit card." so most people are going to mistakenly think moviepass is the same, and for box office cashiers its easier to run X tickets in 1 purchase and just split the payment among multiple cards rather than ring each one seperately. I've seen at least a dozen times older people be told this by movie theater cashiers and since its the way they've always bought movies they go along with it. This fucks with moviepass's data though and looks like split charges.

Of course moviepass is a total hacked up, fucked up system where they REALLY never want you to do split purchases (if they could disable it they would, but they are piggybacking off the debit card network) but instead 1 swipe = 1 ticket.

So its really just a side effect of the dumbshit way moviepass decided to run around movie theaters by doing this debit card app/load scheme, and then movie theaters not really giving a shit and their existing business practices colliding hard with moviepass.

For example some smaller theaters shut down the box office I guess during the weekdays and you purchase movie tickets at the concession stand, since only 1 college kid is working the entire theater. Well, in the debit network that comes across as a concession stand purchase. Couple people have been banned because from MoviePass's limited data, it looks like they are buying snacks when its just an artifact of how theaters don't all work the same way.
 

Onoes

Trakanon Raider
1,409
1,070
Hahha, I just got my chat response... 45 days or so after my issue. it just says "Sorry for the delay, have you had any other issues since this one?" So I replied that yes, I can still not use my card at the local theater, explained the problem again, and mentioned how I have now had the cards just over 2 months without being able to use them outside of going out of town. Wah wah. I'll update you this summer when I hear back again! lolz
 
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Jalynfane

Phank 2002
719
563
So if I am a small local theatre operator, I can get like 2-300 movie pass subs going and just use them for each day, magically fill up my theatre with viewers. Then movie pass pays me the full ticket price each time it was used? How can this shit be sutainable?
 
  • 1WTF
Reactions: 1 user

spronk

FPS noob
22,573
25,590
Beginning of the end i think. MoviePass is now gonna require you to take a photo of your ticket before you can get another one (the next day), to counter fraud. Pretty silly since its trivial to snap your ticket and then go exchange it at the counter for something else. Given that customer service of MP is unreachable I'm sure there will be zero problems like fucked up tickets, camera not working on some phones, app crashing on photo screen and no way to recover, upload not working, and who knows what the fuck they are actually doing with these scans and how well that'll work.

text of email sent:

We are implementing a few systems to protect our service from fraudulent activity to ensure that MoviePass is sustainable for the entire community. As part of this initiative, we will soon begin testing some new safeguards.

Starting over the next few days, after you purchase a movie ticket with your MoviePass card, you will need to upload a photo of your ticket stub. This photo needs to be uploaded before you're able to purchase your next movie ticket through MoviePass. You'll be prompted to submit the photo of your ticket stub through the MoviePass app. This feature will help us better track user behavior and ensure that subscribers are abiding by our Terms of Use. We appreciate your cooperation as we test out this new process.

The process is really simple. All you’ll have to do is enable camera access for your MoviePass app, and then the app will prompt you to take a photo of your ticket stub after you purchase a movie ticket. Once the photo verification is processed (this will only take seconds), you’ll be able to purchase your next ticket the following day. We don’t believe this extra step should impact your experience.
 

Sludig

Silver Baronet of the Realm
8,973
9,275
Need to see deathwish ( I suspect it got toned down since it was pulled from release months ago) and a few others I think are coming out soon and probably cancel. I've learned I have a hard time spending 3 hours between travel and movie time to see something even if it's almost free.
 

PatrickStar

Trakanon Raider
1,529
558
You're killing me, Smalls.

Finally a cheap was way to see movies with a monthly sub fee.
Complain you need to take a pic or its too much time.
Time to cancel.

We humans truly will find a reason, any reason to shit on something. Forget embracing world peace. We can't even embrace a cheap movie-a-day venture.
 

spronk

FPS noob
22,573
25,590
tomb raider 2 weeks
pacific rim 2 3 weeks
ready player one
avengers
deadpool 2
han solo
super troopers 2
jurassic world 2
incredibles 2
soldado
ant man 2
equalizer 2
mama mia 2
mission impossible 6
replicas
the meg

there is a pretty good list of movies between now and august still
 

nu_11

Golden Baronet of the Realm
3,055
19,937
I'm canceling my MoviePass.

The only ones on that list that interest me are:
avengers
deadpool 2
mission impossible 6
soldado
 

Brikker

Trump's Staff
6,088
4,403
tomb raider 2 weeks
pacific rim 2 3 weeks
ready player one
avengers
deadpool 2
han solo
super troopers 2
jurassic world 2
incredibles 2
soldado
ant man 2
equalizer 2
mama mia 2
mission impossible 6
replicas
the meg

there is a pretty good list of movies between now and august still

4 of those worth seeing in a theater.
 
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a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,762
I'm canceling my MoviePass.

The only ones on that list that interest me are:
avengers
deadpool 2
mission impossible 6
soldado
To me that is the whole point of MoviePass to watch all the things that might not be "worth it". I keep it running 12 months a year.
 
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Reactions: 1 user

nu_11

Golden Baronet of the Realm
3,055
19,937
To me that is the whole point of MoviePass to watch all the things that might not be "worth it". I keep it running 12 months a year.

You're paying $10 a month to watch movies you're not really interested in? And also, spending hours of your life stuck in a theatre, potentially being annoyed by other people, and paying $6 for 20oz of soda?

People sure do like to rationalize making dumb decisions.... My mom also thinks she's saving money when she buys things "on sale."
 
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a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,762
You're paying $10 a month to watch movies you're not really interested in? And also, spending hours of your life stuck in a theatre, potentially being annoyed by other people, and paying $6 for 20oz of soda?

People sure do like to rationalize making dumb decisions.... My mom also thinks she's saving money when she buys things "on sale."
No, I like to broaden my horizons and see movies that I might not think are amazing at first trailer.

So many recent movies that have come out that nobody saw coming as good. Wind River, didn’t see that coming.

So I pay $10/mo and see 2-3 movies for that price instead of 4-6 and I would call that good.
 

Homsar

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
8,595
7,426
Already seen 5 movies this year and plan on seeing these for sure. My movie pass was $90 for the year. I would have already spent $50 so far this year on tickets

Avengers
Ant man
Deadpool
Incredibles
Wreck it ralp
mission impossible fallout
Game night
Solado
Isle of dogs
Super truper 2
 
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spronk

FPS noob
22,573
25,590
he's lying, the app doesn't currently track your location data all the time, only when you actually check in for a movie. People have run it through network sniffers and it doesn't have any sort of background tracking data, and I believe google and apple would kick them off their app stores if they tried (not even sure user level apps could do that when they are closed), plus you can set security level of apps to turn off tracking and only turn it on when you run it.

The CEO has been caught up in a number of these kind of lies to try and convince Hollywood studios and Wall Street that MoviePass is far more useful, sophisticated, and powerful than it actually is. I don't know what is weirder, the fact that he regularly lies about stuff or the fact that he doesn't seem to know how the technology for his own company works.

MoviePass has simply been a huge transfer of wealth like the dot-com era, taking $200m from stock market investors and giving it to movie theaters, and another $100m from consumers ($10/mo) and giving that to movie chains too with really very little to show for all that money. Its been fantastic for consumers though, I've racked up insane amounts of reward points I can use for years to see the movies I'd actually want to see in theaters, for $10/mo can't really beat it as long as it stays alive. At current cash burn rates I think it has another 4-5 months before they have to raise more money again.
 
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