MoviePass Reports B.O. Impact On ‘Justice League’, ‘Coco’, ‘Three Billboards’ & More
MoviePass revealed various results this morning of how their monthly movie ticket subscription program is moving the needle for a number of titles in release at the fall box office. Currently, any moviegoer who wants to attend the cinema an unlimited number of times need only pay MoviePass $8 a month.
Many inside distribution and exhibition have wondered how MoviePass will make money in the long run; and part of the company’s financial plan to offset those losses will come from marketing partnerships with studios and distributors.
To date, one MoviePass collaboration was with Bleecker Street’s Thanksgiving stretch release The Man Who Invented Christmas which the ticketing agency reports that they “realized a further 48.3% lift to ticket purchases for the title against a statistically relevant control group which was not a part of the marketing campaign.” To date, The Man Who Invented Christmas has grossed $4.3M at the domestic B.O.
Lionsgate/Amazon Studios’ Last Flag Flying. MoviePass reports that they “realized a further 53.3% increase in ticket purchases for the title against a statistically relevant control group, which was not a part of the marketing campaign.” Last Flag Flying has not been one of Amazon’s successes this season earning less than $1M.
In addition, MoviePass reported the following impact figures its subscription program had when it came to the box office. Duly note that studios on their side cannot verify these box office figures: They cannot see what portion of their hourly grosses are generated by MoviePass. Again, MoviePass only counts 600K subscribers, so marketshare figures are small. One major studio executive told Deadline recently that if MoviePass controlled a formidable share of admissions on a weekly basis, on par with Imax, then they’d take the company very seriously as a moviegoing partner. Of note:
–MoviePass’ ticket purchases accounted for 13.21% of the opening B.O. ($62K) for Sony Pictures/Columbia’s Roman J. Israel Esq. “This represents more than a 6x increase on the average 2% of the box office that MoviePass contributes to nationwide,” says the company.
–MoviePass’ ticket purchases repped 10% of the opening B.O. ($322K) for Fox Searchlight’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
–Moviepass repped 1.78% of domestic box office for Warner Brothers’ Justice League — that’s $1.7M off an $93.8M opening. “Even as the domestic box office for the film shrunk to nearly 27% of opening weekend box office for the second full week MoviePass’ ticket purchases actually climbed to 2.17% of domestic box office total during that same period.”
–For Disney’s Coco, MoviePass’ accounted for 1.34% of the pic’s opening B.O. of $72.9M or $977K. Coco‘s ticket sales eased close to 50% in weekend 2 with MoviePass’ percentage contribution to the domestic box office upticking to 2.18%.
–On Universal’s The Snowman, MoviePass fueled 3.54% of the pic’s $6.6M opening weekend or $233K.
“The data speaks for itself – our data shows that MoviePass has a demonstrable impact on revenue figures and percentage contributions to overall box office receipts for both major studio releases and independent films during Opening Weekend,” said Mitch Lowe, CEO of MoviePass. “And in partnering actively with studios, exhibitors and distributors to promote particular titles, we continue to drive even more tangible benefits to both movie exhibitors and studios. With studio-driven revenue, we have delivered on our promise to investors that our business model will continue to expand beyond subscription fees.”
“Studio and distributor executives are increasingly understanding our impact on box office receipts. But we’ve moved beyond ideological discussions in Hollywood to the tactical – how we can partner with studios and distributors to actively influence moviegoing behavior in order to have our subscribers select and buy tickets to their titles over other movie options,” said Khalid Itum, VP of Business Development at MoviePass. “And while it can no longer be disputed that our opening weekend box office numbers are consistently significant at this stage in our company’s growth, I think the real story here is the velocity of our impact: that MoviePass’ contribution to those box office totals grow beyond opening weekend for sustained performance in the theatrical window even as box office receipts decrease overall on a weekly basis.”
MoviePass also announced today that they’ve signed a marketing-performance based revenue agreement with an independent distributor, but did not name the company in their release. “Under terms of the agreement, MoviePass will provide active marketing services to a particular title and will earn revenue based on the incremental increase in ticket prices demonstrated in the theatrical release of the film,” read this morning’s statement.
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