MoviePass Reveals Its Members’ Most Viewed Movies of the Summer
Anecdotally, every single time I’ve been to the theater in the last six months, I haven’t bought a ticket without at least one person on line in front of or behind me buying theirs with MoviePass, the ultra-cheap movie theater subscription service. The cards have become ubiquitous thanks to millions of subscribers paying $10 a month to see one movie a day every day of the year.
Assuming MoviePass lasts long enough (their stock keeps hitting all-time lows), one of the more interesting things to watch will be how MoviePass and its near-unlimited access to theaters affects attendance, and for what kinds of movies. For example, the company just revealed to Business Insider their top 12 best-selling titles (selling being a relative term here, since you don’t pay for tickets, unless there’s surge pricing in your area at that time) for the summer. Here’s the top ten:
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Incredibles 2
- Deadpool 2
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
- Ocean’s 8
- Solo: A Star Wars Story
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Tag
- Hereditary
- Life of the Party
When you compare that list to the list of domestic hits, a few things jump out. For the most part, the top of the MoviePass list basically reflects the overall popularity of these movies; Avengers: Infinity War was the biggest movie of the summer, followed by Incredibles 2 and then Jurassic World and Deadpool 2 (the order is flipped on MoviePass). The second half of the list, though, that changes a little. Ocean’s 8 was more popular with MoviePassers (5th biggest movie of the summer) than non-MoviePassers (7th biggest), and while Hereditary barely scratches the top 20 films of the summer among all moviegoers, on MoviePass it came in ninth, ahead of “bigger” films like The First Purge and Life of the Party.
It could well be that people using MoviePass are more willing to take a chance on an odd-looking title because they’re not paying anything extra to try it. MoviePass has consistently said that is why theaters should partner with it; because they can drive customers to smaller movies. Maybe they can. If they can stay in business.