By: Jared Evan
America’s two largest movie theater chains AMC and Regal Cinemas monthly subscription apps, allowing customers to frequent the local multi-plex multiple times a month for a set price, pre pandemic were very successful.
AMC offers 3 movies a week for a little over $20 a month, while Regal’s” Movie Pass”, offers unlimited screenings for a similar monthly pass.
Now Mubi-Go is presenting a similar service offering fans of “art house cinema” screening deals, while also offering a streaming library of films.
NY Times reported: The streaming service Mubi, which caters to cinephiles seeking an eclectic mix of films, has begun offering a membership program that will seek to give art-house fans much of what they could want in one tidy package: A well-stocked streaming service that movie lovers can flip on from home, bundled with a weekly ticket they can use to go see a handpicked film at their favorite theater.
Mubi, in other words, is a hybrid streaming service and movie pass. It is Net-flix meets Movie Pass. Much like the old-fashioned art house, theaters, which have slowly vanished from NYC, the key to Mubi is programming or “curation”
NY Times reported: “We are about picking good movies for people and trying to get people to watch them,” said C. Mason Wells, Mubi’s director of distribution in the United States. “We want to take our findings and share them with the masses — bring the good things to a wider audience.”
Mubi buys the tickets for the films from the art houses, Wells said. Subscribers receive a ticket code generated via the Mubi Go app.
IN NYC a Mubi movie pass subscription will get you a ticket to one new “art house” or “independent” movie a week at the following remaining venues: Film Forum, Film at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, IFC Center, Nitehawk Cinema or the Paris Theater — each week. Mubi buys the tickets for the films from the art houses, Wells said. Subscribers receive a ticket code generated via the Mubi Go app.
For a monthly fee, which is $10.99 for a limited time, they also have access to Mubi’s streaming platform. Mubi selects one new movie — often from far-flung corners of the world — to add to its platform each day.
“We think it is valuable for people to be in an actual theatrical space,” Wells said. “It is the bedrock of the cinema industry. We’re trying to honor that.” Mubi Go, he added, was not originally intended to start out amid a pandemic. But given the timing, “it has become something that I think can become even more of a lifeline” for art houses “than we envisioned.”
Movie exhibition has been decimated due to the pandemic and is slowly recovering. Independent and art house theaters are having an even more difficult time. Will Mubi be able to generate interest in watching films in a theater again?
