MoviePass is opening a waitlist this week for customers that want to get onboard in time for the company’s Labor Day comeback. Subscription tiers are initially being offered at rates generally staggered from $10, $20 or $30 per month. The startup that had a spectacular rise and fall before being purchased out of bankruptcy by co-founder Stacy Spikes last November is now headed for its third act as Spikes relaunches the once-popular moviegoing service. Mark Wahlberg through Unrealistic Ideas, his non-fiction production unit, is developing a documentary on the MoviePass ascent and flameout. Continue reading MoviePass Labor Day Reboot Has Waitlist and Tiered Pricing

U.S. audiences have been showing up at theaters to see summer blockbusters, a happy plot twist for an industry that saw the bottom fall out during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Films such as Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick” and Universal’s “Jurassic World Dominion” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru” have proven that despite the surge in streaming, audiences will trek out of the home for content that rises to the level of an event. “There’s no question that we’re coming back — in relevance, and in actual behavior,” said Warner Bros. domestic distribution president Jeff Goldstein. Continue reading Summer Blockbusters Bringing Moviegoers Back to Theaters

National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO John Fithian proclaimed the end of day-and-date streaming and theatrical releases in an address at CinemaCon 2022, which wraps today in Las Vegas. “I am pleased to announce that simultaneous release is dead as a serious business model, and piracy is what killed it,” Fithian declared Tuesday during his state-of-the-industry address. “When a pristine copy of a movie makes its way online and spreads, it has a very damaging impact.” Motion Picture Association chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said that pre-release piracy reduces box office revenue by as much as 20 percent. Continue reading The Death of Day-and-Date Theatrical and Streaming Releases

Three months after MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes shared hopes to resurrect his subscription movie service, shuttered late 2019, the executive held a New York press conference to announce his summer reboot. “A lot of people lost money. A lot of people lost trust,” Spikes told reporters, explaining that he plans to run MoviePass 2.0 like a co-op, with top-level stakeholders eligible to hold partial ownership and a lifetime subscription. “Moviegoing is not going anywhere. Cinema is not going anywhere,” Spikes said during last week’s press event at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater. Continue reading MoviePass Service Plans to Be Back in Operation by Summer

The MoviePass subscription theater ticket service appears on track for a re-launch. The company was purchased by one of its original co-founders, Stacy Spikes, as a liquidated asset of parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics, which filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2020. Spikes was upon launch in 2011 the CEO of MoviePass, which Helios acquired in 2017. He released a statement last week confirming the acquisition, which was “encouraged by the continued interest from the moviegoing community,” and said he hopes to relaunch the service next year with new investors. Continue reading Co-Founder Acquires MoviePass, Aims to Relaunch Next Year

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are poised to revolutionize the dubbing process for media content, optimizing it for a more natural effect as part of an emerging movement called “auto-dubbing.” AI has impacted the way U.S. audiences are experiencing the Netflix breakout “Squid Game” and other foreign content, as well as helping U.S. programming play better abroad. Its impact is in its nascency. Soon, replacing rubber-lip syndrome with AI-enhanced visuals that enable language translation at the click of a button may become the industry norm.  Continue reading AI-Powered Auto-Dubbing May Soon Become Industry Norm

As pandemic rules evolve and movie theaters reopen across the U.S., theater owners in North America with studios and other companies unveiled Cinema Week, a six-day event offering deals for food and drink and advance film screenings. Studios are on track to release major titles, having already unveiled “Godzilla vs. Kong” and “A Quiet Place Part II” to some success. Still, sales are lagging, with Comscore reporting that movies grossed $57 million in the U.S. and Canada last weekend, down 58 percent from the same period in 2019. Special screenings and an array of promotional deals aim to help turn things around. Continue reading Industry Lures Moviegoers with Special Deals and Screenings

U.S. movie theaters brought in nearly $100 million in ticket sales over the four-day Memorial Day weekend. The top two titles were Paramount’s “A Quiet Place Part II,” which earned $48.4 million in three days (and $57 million over the full four days) and Disney’s “Cruella,” which made $27 million in four days, after an earlier Disney+ release. This performance has been the best box office since the advent of the global COVID-19 pandemic, although it was less than half of the $232 million earned in the same holiday period in 2019. Continue reading Movie Theaters Report Upswing for Strong Holiday Weekend

New York governor Andrew Cuomo gave the okay for movie theaters to open beginning March 5 for a maximum of 50 people per screening, a capacity of 25 percent. This marks the first time that movie theaters there have opened in almost a year. Theaters must use advanced air filtration systems, while attendees are required to wear masks and sit in their assigned seats. State theaters outside New York City have reopened over the last few months based on lower COVID-19 infection numbers. In reaction to the news, AMC Entertainment stock rose 16 percent. Continue reading Cuomo Greenlights March 5 Opening for NYC Movie Theaters

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest movie-theater chain, particularly hard. After registering a $2.2 billion net loss for Q1, it made “virtually no revenue” in the first two weeks of the quarter ending March 30. Now, AMC chief executive Adam Aron says he hopes to get AMC Theatres in the U.S. and U.K. open in July, although he did not specify a date. AMC has 1,000 theaters with 11,000 screens in several countries. In California, 51 counties have been approved to reopen movie theaters as soon as June 12. Continue reading AMC Prepares to Open Most of its Theaters Worldwide by July

Netflix’s plans for the upcoming release of its Martin Scorsese film, “The Irishman” have shifted due to pushback from major theater chains after they learned of the streaming giant’s plans for a limited run. Netflix now plans to debut the film at the Shubert Organization’s Belasco Theatre in New York City, with showings from November 1st to December 1st that will follow a standard Broadway theater schedule. The company will provide modern equipment for the screenings. The film will debut on Netflix on November 27th.

Continue reading Netflix Film Will Debut on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre

According to sources, Apple is in talks with cinema chains to open its feature-length films in a traditional theatrical release, with an exclusive stay in theaters before becoming available on Apple TV+. Apple might choose, however, to first debut its films in art house cinemas in New York and Los Angeles. The company reportedly is pursuing this strategy to draw in major directors and producers, as well as avoid the tension Netflix created when it released its movies without an exclusivity window. Continue reading Apple Aims for Traditional Theatrical Exhibition of Its Movies

MoviePass notified its subscribers last week that its cinema plan would interrupt service on Saturday, September 14. At one point, the MoviePass subscription service enabled customers to watch up to one movie per day in theaters for $9.95 per month, a model that proved unsustainable. Parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY) announced that it is considering options, which includes a possible sale of the MoviePass company. While the business model was seen as a bold experiment by some, the company reportedly burned through cash, ultimately disappointing its shareholders. Continue reading MoviePass Officially Shutters its Cinema Subscription Service

Hollywood studios have typically teed up blockbusters well in advance of their release dates. For example, Walt Disney Studios promoted “Tron: Legacy” for three years; Warner Bros. spent almost two years pushing “Godzilla” and Universal Pictures publicized “The Secret Life of Pets 2” for three years. Now, these biggest marketers, which spent $4+ billion annually in advertising, have narrowed the gap considerably — to as little as a few months for tentpole movies — to better respond to the expectation of on-demand content. Continue reading Studios Cater Blockbuster Advertising to Next-Gen Viewers

Sinemia, billed as a competitor to MoviePass with its multi-tiered subscription-based movie ticket offering that started in Europe, announced it will shutter its U.S. operations. Like MoviePass, Sinemia has faced challenges sustaining its subscription model and working out monetization, especially while contending with similar services from theater chains such as AMC with its Stubs A-List offering. In addition, Sinemia has been dealing with a patent lawsuit from MoviePass and a class-action suit from subscribers frustrated by account policies, hidden fees and app problems. Continue reading Sinemia Movie Subscription Service Calls It Quits in the U.S.