A gift for movie lovers
After making a big splash over the summer, MoviePass is looking for a second wind by bundling itself with a hip streaming provider in a deal that’s available exclusively for Costco customers this week only.
Costco saves you money on everything else in life, so why not movies?
Customers of the warehouse club have access to a limitedtime offer that combines oneyear access to movie subscription service MoviePass and indie-film streaming provider Fandor for a single low price of $90.
Now let’s do the math: The regular annual cost of MoviePass is $119.40 and the regular annual cost of Fandor is $59.88.
So that’s a total of $179.28 if you choose to subscribe to both services separately.
By combing them together, Costco gives you a whopping $89.29 off the list price of both services.
That’s a nearly 50 percent discount and probably worth every penny if you love unlimited intheater films and streaming hard-to-find flicks.
But act fast because this offer is only available at Costco.com through Monday, Dec. 18.
A look at competition in the movie membership club business
Never heard of MoviePass before? It’s a $9.99 monthly subscription service that lets you see a new 2D movie every day of the year — even on opening night. With over 4,000 theaters and more than 36,000 screens partnering with this service, there’s sure to be a participating theater near you.
Fandor, meanwhile, is a streaming service that competes with the likes of Netflix. Boasting 5,000 titles, Fandor distinguishes itself from Netflix by having a lot of catalog classic cinema favorites that its larger competitor doesn’t.
Savvy industry watchers may note that MoviePass decided to team up with Costco about a week after a competing movie membership club called Movie Club launched.
Though MoviePass and Movie Club seem like similar services in theory, they’re actually very different in execution.
With MoviePass, you’re able to go to a variety of theater chains. But Movie Club is a proprietary service of theater exhibitor Cinemark. So you’re locked into a chain that has only 533 theaters with 5,957 screens in 41 U.S. states.
But the biggest differentiator of all between MoviePass and Movie Club is what you get for the money.
MoviePass offers you one ticket for every day of the year with which to see new films. With Movie Club, all you basically get for the $8.99 monthly subscription price is one single 2D movie ticket per month and 20 percent off at the concessions stand each time you visit.