Less than a year ago Sinemia appeared to be a very attractive alternative to the foundering Movie Pass when it came to movie theater ticket subscription services. For as little as $4 USD per month you could get a year’s worth of shiny tickets to virtually any movie theater in the United States and see just about any movie that was playing. Just a few months later and Sinemia has announced that it will be shutting down its movie theater ticket subscription service in the United States. The timing cannot be a coincidence – the announcement came just before the theatrical launch of Avengers: Endgame which could possibly bring in a weekend box office total of nearly one billion dollars.
“We are all witnessing that the future of moviegoing is evolving through movie ticket subscriptions. However, we didn’t see a path to sustainability as an independent movie ticket subscription service in the face of competition from movie theaters as they build their own subscriptions,” says a statement on the Sinemia website. “While we are proud to have created a best in market service, our efforts to cover the cost of unexpected legal proceedings and raise the funds required to continue operations have not been sufficient.”
As of this writing there is no word on whether customers who purchased annual plans will receive some sort of refund.
Services such as Sinemia and Movie Pass were paying theaters full price for tickets even though subscribers paid drastically less money for the service which caused many to question if the business model for these companies was sustainable. Competition from theater chains such as AMC and Cinemark put pressure on Sinemia along with litigation from competitor Movie Pass who alleges that Sinemia violated several patents held by the plaintiff.
Sinemia will now focus on assisting movie theaters to develop their own internal subscription services.
