Cinemark Makes a Silly Attempt to Compete with MoviePass

Earlier this year, MoviePass announced that they were offering their subscription service for only $9.95. This deal lets you go and see any 2D movie at participating theaters whenever you want for only $9.95 a month. You can watch a movie every day for a month at that price. Many theaters weren’t too fond of this subscription service and as an example, Cinemark has now released their own subscription plan for moviegoers.

For those confused at or unable to watch the video below, I’ll help break it down. Cinemark wants to charge you $8.99 ($1 less than MoviePass) for one movie a month. Now, they offer other perks such as all tickets you buy are only $8.99 as well, you get 20% off snacks, unused tickets roll over into the next month, and they waive any fees for reserving seats in an attempt to sweeten the deal. SlashFilm is quick to point out that in Los Angeles, “[f]or years, the ability to reserve seats when you buy your tickets online has been free…”

I just checked my local Cinemark pricing and for a matinee, it’s already less than $7 and a General Admission ticket is $9. I wouldn’t be getting much of a bargain except on snacks I could save a couple bucks. I’m sorry, but if theaters want to compete with MoviePass, they’ll need a better deal than this. Not to say that this is completely useless though. I know some metropolitan areas have ticket prices much higher than $8.99 and Cinemark may be their only theater option. That is really the only time I see this being a good idea at all. However, most metropolitan areas I know of have dozens of movie theaters that I’m sure you could use MoviePass with or they are probably working on their own plan that is hopefully better than this.

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