Early Days

The roommate and I had a discussion about the pros and cons of Movie Pass. On one hand, just paying ten bucks a month to see any movie in the theaters you want for free sound great. On the other hand, it also sounds a little bit too good to be true. Mind you so did Netflix at first. It's been a lot of years, but at one time it was utterly unimaginable that you could pay a fee and rent a bunch of movies every month with no late fees at all. That worked so well that it destroyed the movie rental industry.

The problem is, Movie Pass has to work WITH the theater industry and a lot of movie theaters are nervous about this. Already AMC said they were looking for a way out of the Movie Pass deal. They're not sure if they can find one, but they want out because, well, because I guess they think movies SHOULD be expensive.

Honestly, from the theater side of this, I don't see the problem. Movie Pass IS paying for the ticket. If someone is walking in there and paying nothing for their movie, they're more likely to purchase concessions, which is where most theaters make their money anyway. It also means they will have more people in the theaters more often, and that could be a huge boost to some of these places that are just about to close for good.

From the customer side, at least at the moment, things are more complicated. For one thing, Movie Pass doesn't have a clear and easy list of participating theaters. Or rather, they do, but their website stays so overwhelmed, it's almost impossible to link to it. I only found the listings in my area because someone posted a link where you could see it, but only in code. That isn't going to be a welcoming thing for most people. They need to upgrade their website and honestly should have done that before announcing the price reduction.

There is also the physical annoyance of it. MoviePass sends you a card that has to be swiped and confirmed every time you go to see a movie. This doesn't seem like it would be any more hassle than using a credit card, but some people have reported that the process somehow takes a lot longer than it should and that sometimes the cards won't go through at all. It also makes it more difficult to see popular movies on the first weekend because most of the tickets will have been bought up in advance. There is really no way around that second one, but in the first case, various kinds of solutions could be found. Door detectors, outside ticket machines, etc.

For most people, the biggest deterrent is going to be the level of crap they may have been given by the theaters around them. A lot of theaters can be assholish to their customer base, especially when they think said customers are getting away with something. They would rather have empty seats than allow certain movies to be watched by passes or reward tickets. They may refuse to honor Movie Pass for any number of reasons, create obstacles, and do whatever they can to discourage people from using them. And as I said above, there really is no logical reason for this, but I've noticed most businesses don't run on logic.

When it comes to this new Movie Pass experiment, it's early days. A lot of the problems could be solved if people are willing to work on them. I really hope they do get solved and not just because I don't want to pay a lot of money for movies. People need outlets right now. No one smokes anymore. Fewer people drink socially. No one can afford to just drive around to unwind. As a nation, we are stressed out and in serious need of distraction and comfort. During the Depression, movies helped to get people through it. Maybe that could work for us again. Something needs to.