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Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

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Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#191

Post by RankingMember »

echelon wrote: post #150
zerocrates wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the joys of having Moviepass in that brief period where it was very cheap but still worked was going to random late-night showings of stuff I'd have never otherwise seen, sometimes being the only person there. Of course you can still do that with the surviving "all you can eat" plans, but they're way more expensive and aren't quite as generous.

MoviePass was one of the most absurd ideas for a company ever. I don't know what they were thinking. Unlimited movies and they ate the entire cost? They didn't arrange any special deals or anything - they just paid the full price of the movie. It was insane.

There were also people abusing it to simply earn loyalty rewards at the theaters, e.g. people that lived close enough to theaters just going there, buying tickets, and not even seeing the movie just to pile up rewards points for free food/drink when they did actually go to see movies.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#193

Post by benoau »

echelon wrote: post #150
zerocrates wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the joys of having Moviepass in that brief period where it was very cheap but still worked was going to random late-night showings of stuff I'd have never otherwise seen, sometimes being the only person there. Of course you can still do that with the surviving "all you can eat" plans, but they're way more expensive and aren't quite as generous.

MoviePass was one of the most absurd ideas for a company ever. I don't know what they were thinking. Unlimited movies and they ate the entire cost? They didn't arrange any special deals or anything - they just paid the full price of the movie. It was insane.

They watched Silicon Valley and really liked Slice Line's business model lol...

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#195

Post by bombcar »

echelon wrote: post #150
zerocrates wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the joys of having Moviepass in that brief period where it was very cheap but still worked was going to random late-night showings of stuff I'd have never otherwise seen, sometimes being the only person there. Of course you can still do that with the surviving "all you can eat" plans, but they're way more expensive and aren't quite as generous.

MoviePass was one of the most absurd ideas for a company ever. I don't know what they were thinking. Unlimited movies and they ate the entire cost? They didn't arrange any special deals or anything - they just paid the full price of the movie. It was insane.

The idea was they'd bootstrap it by giving you a credit card that could buy one ticket (which is all it was, a weird debit/credit card with a $15-20 authorization limit and a limited number of merchants accepted) - and then get the theaters onboard so that the theaters would be paying for it.

So (in theory) it's a "win win" if they get everyone onboard - the theater gets to sell popcorn, the movie studio gets a buck or two instead of nothing, and movie pass collects the subscription.

However, it needs them all to agree that the $15 ticket for "the empty theater" is really only worth $1 - which would go to the movie studio. That part never happened.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#196

Post by redwall_hp »

caymanjim wrote: post #2

Do enough people buy tickets in advance now that this really indicates anything of value? I'm old and have never pre-purchased a movie ticket in my life. I assume a lot of people do, but the few times I've been to the movies lately, it seems people are buying tickets at the theater.

I never do it in person. Alamo Season Pass -> select the reserved seats -> go sit down when you get to the theater. You have to reserve tickets for classic films or big releases because they often sell out, anyway.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#198

Post by bombcar »

dsr_ wrote: post #186
2ndorderthought wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to buy out theaters to have that privilege on blockbuster opening nights.

It's usually quite possible. Movie theaters make their money on food and drink, so arranging an extra screening for the cost of 50% of the seats in a given room is nicely profitable. Depending on the theater's manager, they'll either want someone to guarantee a minimum or to have a single fee paid up front. There's nothing quite like knowing that everyone in the theater is a friend.

Opening night most if not all of the ticket price goes to the studio anyway, but it's the ticket price not the per-showing price - so if they have a theater empty anyway (and I've not seen a blockbuster fill all theaters at a given multiplex for decades, and even then it was only small 4plex) they might as well make you a deal.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#199

Post by bombcar »

GJim wrote: post #172
nebula8804 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand Its fun to watch movies alone on a big screen. My area of NJ apparently could care less about movies like Knock Down The House(Biography of AOC and other house candidates), Navalny (Movie about the murdered politician opposing Putin), The Imitation Machine: Movie about Alan Turing or Last Night in Soho (A wonderful Edgar Wright thriller) On the other hand, I feel sad that no one in my region seems to…

> My area of NJ apparently could care less Surely you mean " couldn't care less"?

People couldn't care less about being careless with could care less.

Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold

#200

Post by rashkov »

jonners00 wrote: post #140
nebula8804 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand Its fun to watch movies alone on a big screen. My area of NJ apparently could care less about movies like Knock Down The House(Biography of AOC and other house candidates), Navalny (Movie about the murdered politician opposing Putin), The Imitation Machine: Movie about Alan Turing or Last Night in Soho (A wonderful Edgar Wright thriller) On the other hand, I feel sad that no one in my region seems to…

This is a bit off topic, but I occasionally used to sleep on the sofa in our first floor office in an old Georgian building in Fitzrovia. One occasion when I did that, I woke up at about 3.30 am with intense red light flooding through all the rear windows and the sound of loads of people chattering in the street out front, which seemed as busy as it normally would be in the daytime. I rushed to the front windows and…

it's like a microcosm of the movie itself! super cool
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