Daniel Pineiro
Copy Editor
Since the invention of cinema, the movies have always been a place for people to enjoy themselves. People would often save up what little they had to just forget their problems and become lost in the glamor of Hollywood magic and go see the latest film starring their favorite movie stars. Yet it quickly became a problem for moviegoers when the price of snacks and tickets were no longer worth a mere twenty-five cents.
By today’s standards, a family of four can nearly rack up a total of more than $40 for just purchasing movie tickets alone. Now if they were to purchase a medium-sized popcorn and soda, which costs an average total of $12.50 for each individual, it would amount to nearly $90 in expenses for a single trip to the movies.
This is why streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu quickly became so popular. For around $10 on average, people can subscribe to these streaming sites and watch a finite amount of movies and television shows on their screens at home right on the couch whilst eating their own snacks. Many of these streaming apps even have features for people to watch anywhere on the go and are no longer restricted to just watching it one screen.
Cable channel services are also starting to hop on the streaming bandwagon themselves. Disney had just announced their own streaming service to begin in early 2018. All of this leads to the question, could the magic of the movie theaters soon die out?
The answer is no, as many movie theaters have many affordable options for people to access, with options such as matinee times, coupons and half priced purchases on select days. But none of which can compare to the affordable option of Moviepass. Moviepass is a subscription service which allows moviegoers to purchase a ticket for a movie per day for just a subscription fee per month.
By simply going into their mobile app, users can check and see which movie theaters supports Moviepass, choose any film and showtime and head on down to the theater of their choice. Moviepass has been named as one of the “25 Most Disruptive Apps of 2012” and part of “The Best of Everything in 2012” by The Business Insider. The service has undergone various changes in the past which used to allow subscribers to view a limited amount of movies per month and various price changes.
However, most notably, was in August 2017 when Moviepass announced that they would switch their $50 subscription fee to a new plan, which allows moviegoers to see a single film per day for just plan little as $9.95 per month. Many critics of the service change deemed that this is simply a plan to widen the Moviepass subscriber base in hopes of attracting new users and later on increasing their subscription fee since as it stands, Moviepass has a lot to lose on this service by keeping the fee so cheap and allowing users to see multiple movies a month for just less than $10.
Some theater chains on the other hand are having issues with this service. These cinema chains include AMC and Landmark theaters, which have actively objected against the service and deemed it to be unfair towards the cinema.