MoviePass Launches MoviePass Ventures: Subsidiary Will Co-Acquire Films With Distributors – Sundance
MoviePass is getting into the film finance end of the business. The monthly movie ticket subscription service announced today that they’re launching MoviePass Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary founded to co-acquire films with film distributors.
The announcement was made at The Sundance Film Festival during MoviePass’ content series Off-Script: The Future of Film to a room of filmmakers, producers, directors, investors, distributors, and other industry executives.
“We’ve experienced enormous success bringing people back into the theaters since our launch in August and with an influx of business from distributors, have proven the impact of our marketing over and over again, giving them an incremental lift in ticket sales,” said Mitch Lowe, CEO of MoviePass. “Given the successes we have demonstrated for our distributor partners in ensuring strong box office in the theatrical window, it’s only natural for us to double down and want to play alongside them – and share in the upside.”
According to MoviePass they are currently purchasing approximately 3% of domestic box office. However, it is purchasing in excess of 10% of a particular title’s domestic box office when it uses a series of levers within its app and marketing-based platform to impact a consumer’s selection of a particular independent film. Examples of having impacted 10%+ box office performance include: The Post, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, Call Me By Your Name and The Shape of Water.
By boosting performance in the theatrical window, MoviePass says it is creating an annuity and benefiting from greater downstream revenues on all platforms , including theatrical, home entertainment, streaming and pay TV, foreign sales, digital/physical home window and other ancillary streams (hotel, airline).
“We aren’t here at Sundance to compete with distributors, but rather to put skin in the game alongside them and to bring great films to the big screen across the country for our subscribers,” said Ted Farnsworth, CEO of Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc, MoviePass’ parent company. “We’re open for business. We’re here at Sundance – and SXSW is next.”
It’s no coincidence that MoviePass is here at Sundance: The monthly movie ticket service has asserted that because of their $9.95/per month charge for unlimited movie tickets, moviegoers have been encouraged to watch movies they wouldn’t normally attend at the theater, i.e. micro-budget and indie films.
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