The movie multiplex might have a new star: subscriptions

As streaming services like Netflix and Hulu surge in popularity, movie theaters have been trying to compete by rethinking the concession counter and installing seats that resemble beds.

Yet attendance was flat at North American cinemas in 2015 and 2016, and analysts are predicting a 4 percent decline in 2017, bringing ticket sales to a 22-year low. Perhaps something more radical is necessary.

Mitch Lowe, a Netflix cofounder, thought so when he took over a ticketing firm called MoviePass in June 2016. By August of this year, when MoviePass introduced a cut-rate subscription-based plan — go to the movies 365 times a year for $9.95 a month — Lowe had been declared an enemy of the state.

“Not welcome here,” AMC Entertainment, the largest multiplex operator in North America, said in August.

It may be time to get on board: MoviePass said this month that it had signed up more than 1 million subscribers in just four months. It took Netflix more than three years to reach that level when it started selling lowpriced subscriptions for DVD rentals in 1999. It took Hulu 10 months to reach 1 million in 2011.

Lowe and Ted Farnsworth, CEO of Helios and Matheson Analytics, which bought a controlling stake in MoviePass in August for $27 million, celebrated the milestone by cheekily posing at an AMC in Times Square.

Under the MoviePass model, theaters get paid full price for every admission. People who sign up receive membership cards that function like debit cards.

When members want to see a movie (no more than one a day) they use a MoviePass smartphone app to check in at the theater. The app instantly transfers the price of a ticket to the membership card. Members in turn use the card to pay for entry. It all works independently of theaters, sometimes to their chagrin.

Lowe believes that ticketing can at least be a break-even business. The real treasure in this venture, he contends, is the trove of data about consumer tastes and habits that MoviePass can collect. It hopes to sell that data to studio marketers.