MoviePass Accounted For Over 10% Of Opening Weekend Ticket Sales For Some Movies

We've written a lot about MoviePass over the past few months, and for good reason: despite a questionable customer service track record, some scare tactics, and what appears to have been an underestimation of consumers' desire for its own product, the service provides a solid value to movie lovers who want to see a movie every day for a cheap price. It's worth putting up with all of the aforementioned problems if the end result is being able to see a movie per day at the cost of $6.95 per month for a year.

Now MoviePass has unveiled some numbers proving that they're having a measurable impact on box office numbers. And in addition, they've signed a marketing and distribution deal with a mysterious movie distribution company, which means that they'll now be actively pushing users toward seeing certain movies.

A new press release says MoviePass has signed "a marketing and performance-based revenue agreement with an independent movie distribution company" under which they 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." Translation: you'll soon start seeing MoviePass ads popping up, if you haven't already.

Meanwhile, MoviePass has been crunching some numbers and found some interesting results: MoviePass ticket purchases accounted for 13.21% of the opening weekend domestic box office for Roman J. Israel, Esq. (which, yes, is a real movie) and 10.00% of the domestic opening weekend take for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. That's an impressive percentage.

Even better for MoviePass, their data shows that their percentages actually increased from the first to the second weeks of release for movies like Justice League, Coco, and The Snowman. Audiences who don't make it out to the theater on opening weekend are looking to get the most bang for their buck with the MoviePass subscription, so it makes sense that they'd use the service to catch up on movies that have been out for a week (or more) already. Looks like the service is having a substantial impact on the industry so far. We'll just have to wait and see how long they can keep it up.

But let's get back to MoviePass ads for a second. To be fair, the idea of MoviePass adopting ads shouldn't be considered an Earth-shaking reveal, because similar companies in this space do the same thing. Every time I open the Fandango app on my phone, for example, there's a pop-up ad trying to convince me to see a movie whose marketing team paid to secure that high-profile placement.

That's been the plan from the start with MoviePass, who entered the game with its lower price tier just a few months ago. The CEO of Helios and Matheson Analytics, Inc. – the company that purchased MoviePass earlier this year – previously explained that their goal was to lure in a large number of customers so they could collect data on viewing behaviors and subsequently target advertisements and other marketing materials to subscribers."It's no different than Facebook or Google," he said. "The more we understand our fans, the more we can target them." Sounds like the user base is now large enough for them to start implementing those tactics.

But what about that "independent movie distribution company" that's mentioned in the press release as having partnered with MoviePass? I contacted MoviePass and asked for clarification, but was told they aren't disclosing the identity of the distribution company at this time. Okay, then. I'm still not quite sure how an independent distribution company fits in with the company's overall goal, but we'll be keeping a close eye on MoviePass as they move forward, so stay tuned for more as we hear it.