AMC v. MoviePass and More Tales of Hollywood Interest - The Minute
Return of the Minute! This week, we've got plenty to cover. Venom drops amid lukewarm reactions, DC just don't stop, and Kevin Smith has a thought (that's nice). But for the main event: MoviePass gets shadier and what is this AMC A-List thing? Is it worth it? Let's find out!
*Full Disclosure: We meant to talk about Kathleen Kennedy's 3 year extension with Lucas film, but we forgot. Our bad. Stay tuned next week for a very special Star Wars episode.
NEWS STORIES:
Venom Backlash Begins: 0:30
Hellboy Poster Drops: 02:21
THE Batman Movie: 03:14
Kevin Smith Wants More Superman: 07:19
AMC v. MoviePass: 08:57
MoviePass Getting Sued: 18:20
SOURCES:
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/amc-a-list-moviepass-1202958185/
https://gizmodo.com/moviepass-is-now-re-enrolling-former-customers-in-an-un-1829423850
https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2458348/amc-stubs-a-list-is-seriously-boosting-attendance
TRANSCRIPT:
Sam:
No cash for MoviePass and AMC's A-list is legit, while no one screams for Kathleen and Venom has Sony seeing black, today, on The Minute.
Hey, hello, hello, hello, welcome once again to another episode of The Minute. My name is Sam.
Chad:
I'm Chad.
Sam:
And thank you so much for listening. We are brought to you by Movie Night Autopsy and we've got a couple of things we're going to be talking about today.
Chad:
Yeah, we're just kind of going through one thing after another, kind of catching up a little bit.
Sam:
Yeah, yeah. There's a couple of noteworthy things. First of all, early reviews for Venom are starting to come out.
Chad:
And ...
Sam:
So far it sounds kind of soft. Go figure.
Chad:
Kind of meh.
Sam:
Who would have thought? The main one that stuck out to me is like I saw somebody comparing to like stuff from the early 2000s which makes me think of Spider-Man 3.
Chad:
What kind of stuff? Like early 2000's super hero movies or just kind of the menace of the time?
Sam:
I don't know. It doesn't sound like a good comparison.
Chad:
Oh, that's probably true. I didn't think about that but it's interesting. I don't know it's ... I got a feeling even if it was decent, people don't want to like it. But then again, they may be totally right about this one. I'll have to find out.
Sam:
No. There's a part of me that does want to like it. It's just that from what I've seen, I'm just so not optimistic about it. That's really where I'm at.
Chad:
Yeah. The final judge is still to call in but we got a feeling we know which way the verdict's going.
Sam:
But I feel like a lot of people feel that way about this movie, like there are some people who are excited about it. Don't get me wrong, I've seen it. But so many people are just kind of waiting to see what happens kind of. And that's not what Sony wants right now with earlier reviews dropping. They don't want people just kind of being like, “Oh yeah, well it sounds like maybe it's fine.”
Chad:
No, they want people camping out. They want presale tickets to be huge-
Sam:
Like the want to get some kind of buzz going for this. They've been reaching and trying so hard to get people excited and just ...
Chad:
This is the closest thing to being what they've been trying to do for what, the last five, six years?
Sam:
Well, they're trying to prove that they can do this without Spider-Man.
Chad:
Yeah, and uh, I don't know.
Sam:
And we will see, maybe. It drops this weekend. I don't think I'm going to be able to go see it this weekend.
Chad:
I'm not going to see it this weekend. I just don't have the time.
Sam:
But I'll definitely be checking it out as soon as I get a chance to. But we'll see whenever the official reviews come in, cause the official reviews don't come in until tomorrow. These are just quote-on-quote, “early reactions”.
Chad:
Gotcha.
Sam:
So you know, take that for what it is. In other news, and lighter news, the Hellboy poster dropped recently.
Chad:
Looks rad.
Sam:
Looks really good.
Chad:
Yeah.
Sam:
I'm very excited about it. It's not who I want in the role of Hellboy.
Chad:
I'm optimistic just cause hearing the people who talk about it and when principle photography ended on this, I forgot the actor's name but he's on a [crosstalk]Stranger Things.
Sam:
Yeah, that's the thing. I feel like I got to clarify. Nothing against the guy who's playing Hellboy, I can't even think of his name. It's just that it's not Ron Perlman.
Chad:
Yeah, we wanted ... What the world wanted was a third Ron Perlman, Del Toro movie. We're not going to get it.
Sam:
Cause war never changes and I was hoping neither did Hellboy.
Chad:
But it looks cool,[crosstalk] I'd like to see what direction they go in.
Sam:
I'm layering my Ron Perlman references.
Chad:
What?
Sam:
I'm layering my Ron Perlman references. But anyways ... yeah, so that's a thing, that looks pretty cool. There's a little bit of possible news coming out for The Batman movie. You know, “The” Batman movie.
Chad:
Oh, “The” Batman movie as opposed to a Batman movie.
Sam:
Yeah. It's the one with “the” in the title.
Chad:
The. 'Cause it worked out for The Predator.
Sam:
Hell yeah. It worked out so well for The Predator.
Chad:
If I can nerd out for a second, often in the early comics in the '30s, they did refer to him as “The Batman”. So nerd-wise, I love that it's called that.
Sam:
Nerd-wise, I am also a fan. I am a fan, I was a fan when they announced it. I'm a fan of Matt Reeves being the guy who's going to direct it.
Chad:
It's going to look awesome.
Sam:
I mean, yeah, seriously. War for the Planet of the Apes, WFTPOTA, [crosstalk]
Chad:
DOTPOTA before it.
Sam:
How good do both of those movies looks?
Chad:
All the POTAs.
Sam:
Even though DOTPOTA is a waste of Gary Oldman, not that Gary Oldman's bad, it's just that that-
Chad:
Yeah he wasn't super utilous?
Sam:
When you use Gary Oldman, you should really use Gary Oldman, you know what I mean? And that movie just kind of has him there for most of it. But the movie looks great, it's shot great, great story, just love that whole series. So very excited to see where he takes the character of the Batman, especially hearing him talk about it like he's always said there's going to be more noir, detective oriented. That sounds awesome. [crosstalk]That's what the character should be.
Chad:
But what's the good news?
Sam:
The news about it, yeah, cause there's news about it.
Chad:
Yeah, we got triggered-
Sam:
Just you know, when we're talking Batman-
Chad:
We just get triggered.
Sam:
Yep, almost did it again. No, the news about it is that it's supposed to start shooting sometime middle of next year.
Chad:
Okay, so that's middle of next year, we're looking at probably summer of 2020 release.
Sam:
Yeah probably something like that-
Chad:
The way these things are going [crosstalk]
Sam:
It's probably cause, yeah-
Chad:
Have they set a budget yet?
Sam:
Usually it's going to be about a year turnaround. I don't think it's going to be ... Like Justice League got out of hand cause of the reshoots and all that, but even with the original budget was for Justice League, I don't think it's going to be working with that kind of budget.
Chad::
Yeah I mean probably [crosstalk]
Sam:
Probably under 200
Chad:
Yeah, I understand that. I've always thought that if there was a way-
Sam:
Maybe under 150.
Chad:
I could see them getting by with a hundred.
Sam:
Yeah, I mean if he really wants it to be dark, noir-type, detective-driven Batman story, you can make that movie for a hundred, for sure.
Chad:
Yeah, that's including re-shoots and a whole bunch of other stuff and I mean there's part of me that wants to see a 50 million dollar Batman movie. I want to see-
Sam:
There's a part of me that does want to see that-[crosstalk]
Chad:
Yeah, cause I'm the type of guy who thinks that often times when you have obstacles and lack of budget and time-
Sam:
It forces you to be creative.
Chad:
Be more creative. So I'd like to see what that movie looks like.
Sam:
Especially from somebody live Reeves.
Chad:
Yeah, totally. But with that, I feel a little bit more comfortable with it cause they're just like “Hey, we can make a Batman movie and it's not the most important thing we ever put out so we have to worry about it all the time.” And freak out cause when you freak out, people make bad decisions.
Sam:
That's kind of what ends up happening, most of the time.
Chad:
I think with this one-
Sam:
I mean, that's what been happening to Warner Bros., almost exclusively and everything DC related that they're doing.
Chad:
But I think if everyone goes into it like with less of a chip on his shoulder and just try to make a good Batman movie, we'll be fine.
Sam:
Right, cause that's what Patty Jenkins did with Wonder Woman. I feel like she was just trying to make a good movie built around that character and she happened to pull that off.
Chad:
She was great.
Sam:
But do you see just that they have this way and they're doing it with this, too because Wonder Woman worked. And so what's DC doing? They're doing a Birds of Prey movie, they're fast-tracking Supergirl. They're trying to do something with Batgirl. And don't get me wrong, these movies could be good, but I feel like it's kind of an over-correction. An over-correction on DC's part.
Chad:
Okay.
Sam:
And that worries me.
Chad:
Yeah, they haven't fully knocked down their main characters yet. Like, successfully. For all the stuff that we stuck out for with those characters on this podcast.
Sam:
Well, Wonder Woman worked because it wasn't a cash grab or an attempt to capitalize on anything. It was just “We're going to have these people make this movies cause this is the movie that we need somebody to make and these are the people to make it,” And then those people showed up and made a good movie. You know? And are they going to be able to pull that off with all these movies that they're not talking about?
Chad:
Ah, we'll see. I don't know.
Sam:
We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens with this Batman movie. And lighter news as far as the DC Universe goes, and this isn't official news, it's just a tidbit that I saw while I was browsing through the news-
Chad:
You tidbittin’?
Sam:
I was, just a little tidbit, just to make us all feel kind of nice about things. Kevin Smith just thinks we should have more Superman movies and that's just nice.
Chad:
Yeah, we just need to echo that. It's not news, it's just a nice thing to say.
Sam:
It's just a nice thought from Kevin Smith, you know? And you know what? I would love to see Kevin Smith's Superman movie.
Chad:
We kind of almost got one in the '90s. He-
Sam:
Kevin Smith?
Chad:
Kevin Smith. He wasn't going to direct it, he was hired to write it.
Sam:
Oh, that's right! He [crosstalk] I forgot about that-
Chad:
He was hired to write that Tim Burton one that never happened with John Peters producing and saying how you got to put giant spiders in it.[crosstalk]
Sam:
Just make it work. Just make it work.
Chad:
Just make it work. He's like, "Can I call him Thanagard and[crosstalk]
Sam:
That's right, no that a good documentary. I watched it.
Chad:
I think I watched it on Amazon one night. Yeah it's a great documentary.
Sam:
It's a really good documentary.
Chad:
Plus he's always directing episodes of Supergirl for CW and now [crosstalk]
Sam:
He's done a couple of [crosstalk]
Chad:
I mean if he-
Sam:
Did Comic Book Men for seven years, his fandom of the Comic Book related medium is well documented. He wrote a couple of Batman runs.
Chad:
Those were some good Batman runs. Did you know that his Green Arrow run-
Sam:
I haven't but I've heard good things.
Chad:
Actually, I don't know how else to put it. It's a metaphysical Green Arrow story.
Sam:
Oh, weird.
Chad:
Yeah, weird, totally, but another time.
Sam:
Another time. It's just nice to hear Kevin Smith's thoughts on things sometimes when-
Chad:
Cause he often has great ideas.
Sam:
When he's not making dick jokes and it didn't sound like he was making any.
Chad:
Well, give him time.
Sam:
And you know I applaud the restraint, Kevin. Way to go on the restraint. But that's all that I was able to dig up today, so are we going to get down to the nitty-gritty of this one?
Chad:
Alright let's do this. I'm going to roll up my sleeves, even though this is a short sleeve-
Sam:
Yeah, cause this has been a long time coming. We've been building up to this one.
Chad:
So have if you've been listening to The Minutes for a while, the first couple of ones we did, in fact the[crosstalk]
Sam:
Been listening to The Minute for a minute?
Chad:
Yeah. Going to let you sit on that one for a minute. Just got to keep that-
Sam:
It's the joke that keeps on not being funny. Alright, sorry go ahead.
Chad:
So when the first was recorded, it was about the AMC/MoviePass, when we started having problems, me and Sam-
Sam:
Well it was more a MoviePass related, the AMC thing hadn't really come out yet-
Chad:
Sorry, I'm sorry
Sam:
Yeah we're getting ahead of ourselves here. No, but it was about MoviePass.
Chad:
MoviePass, ‘cause we were MoviePass users and we were not happy.
Sam:
We were not happy.
Chad:
And they were going through a bunch of stuff in the news and -
Sam:
They were sending us all emails. Well they were sending me emails.
Chad:
I never got one email.
Sam:
You never got an email-
Chad:
The only one I got was the one you forwarded to me, after I politely asked you to.
Sam:
Yep.
Chad:
SO we did a couple of episodes on that, our issues with it. We did two episodes-
Sam:
Well we did one episode and then about a week and a half, two weeks later, there was even more shit that had hit the fan. So it was like “I think we got to talk about this again,”.
Chad:
It got to the point where it's like I can't go see a movie. I'm paying to go see a movie and I'm not going to see a movie ‘cause they took out the “new-run” movies and it was right around the time Mission Impossible 6 came out and that's all I wanted to see.
Sam:
Cause when they first set it up, you could go see a movie however many times you wanted, they had already taken that away. Then they took away the first-runs. Then they had just ... The day before we started talking about it or maybe it was that day, I have to go back and listen to the Minute. But we tried to go and see BlacKkKlansman.
Chad:
Yes. This was that day.
Sam:
But when we pulled it up, we could either go see The Meg or I forget what-
Chad:
Some other movie.
Sam:
I didn't want to go see-
Chad:
Some movies we didn't want to see that day.
Sam:
And I even remember thinking, "You know what? I kind of want to get around to The Meg, but that's not what I want to go see today. And you're going to force me to either not go to the movies or I can go see this movie?"
Chad:
Yes, this is at the point where this was costing me ten dollars a month.
Sam:
This deal's getting worse all the time. Three for three.
Chad:
That's why you suggested we talk about it this way, didn't you?
Sam:
That was my plan all along [crosstalk] totally did not just come to me in the moment.
Chad:
Alright so we did that episode, we uploaded it, we recorded it-
Sam:
Well we recorded it, we wrapped it, Jon broke all his stuff down. We hung out for a minute and Jon left and me and you were just kind of sitting around, hanging out, like “Well are we going to go and see BlacKkKlansman anyway?”. Just feeling bummed.
Chad:
We didn't want to pay regular ticket price cause we're-
Sam:
That's why I had the MoviePass.
Chad:
We're passed that part in our lives. We've moved on ... we've evolved from that-
Sam:
If you will.
Chad:
If you will and I just wasn't having it so I said, “Screw it, let's do this.” And so we both canceled our MoviePasses.
Sam:
We both reluctantly came to the conclusion of canceling the MoviePass. Within an hour of us wrapping that episode, our MoviePasses were canceled. Within an hour of that, we had each successfully signed up for the AMC A-List, which if you have an AMC Theater in your hometown, you've heard of this. If you go to it at all. And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm sure you go to the movies.
But we were able to successfully do that and we went that day and went and saw BlacKkKlansman.
Chad:
And it's totally worth it, it's amazing. I love it so much.
Sam:
It's so so so worth it. We're just going to shut up for AMC here for a minute, but the difference is, we're not getting paid by AMC.
Chad:
They are not paying us one dime.
Sam:
They're paying us in being able to go and see movies and it's just so convenient.
Chad:
You know what, now that we say it out loud, I feel like this is a fair transaction.
Sam:
I mean seriously[crosstalk]
Chad:
I get to see movies and they give me this deal and I talk about it.
Sam:
After taxes $21.50, that's what I pay-
Chad:
Yeah, a month.
Sam:
$21.50 after tax.
Chad:
And you get to see three movies a week.
Sam:
And I've been seeing, easily a movie a week.
Chad:
Totally.
Sam:
And I've been seeing a couple of IMAX screenings a month.
Chad:
We went to 2001 at IMAX and that was fantastic.
Sam:
It covered 2001 in IMAX.
Chad:
Come on. Come on.
Sam:
I hate myself cause all we're doing is just going on and on about how great this[crosstalk] AMC corporate product is, but it just-
Chad:
It just gets better all the time. [crosstalk]
Sam:
If you're a person who goes to the movies frequently, it's easily the better deal than MoviePass. Cause even with MoviePass, whenever it was working, I would still go to the theater and be kind of afraid that it wouldn't work.
Chad:
Cause sometimes it wouldn't work.
Sam:
Or it would work and they'd give me the ticket and I'd get a couple of steps in and they'd be like, “Oh, wait, hold on a second, Sir, did you really think you were going to get away with that?” I thought something bad was going to happen every time I went to the theater.
Chad:
You said it-
Sam:
I was waiting for it.
Chad:
In the first episode we did, where you corrected me. I said, “We've been using MoviePass,” and you said “No, Sir, we've been taking advantage of MoviePass.” And it feels that way using it, like you're sneaking in. I'm walking through the front door and handing the person at the front a thing, I still feel like I'm sneaking in.
Sam:
Oh yeah, I'm stealing from somebody in this situation.
Chad:
With the A-List, I didn't want to do it at first cause I wasn't sure and then we did it and I immediately appreciated everything [crosstalk]
Sam:
And as much as I hated the people that were in that priority line, cause you know that priority line-
Chad:
We all judge.
Sam:
The yellow tape line over to the left of the regular person, the regular shmuck line.
Chad:
The super long, regular, shmuck line because -
Sam:
You always just look at the people in that priority line and just hate ‘em.
Chad:
Yeah, we know you do, cause we did.
Sam:
Well now we are those people[crosstalk]
Chad:
And you know what I don't blame you.
Sam:
Haters going to hate-
Chad:
Yeah I don't blame you-
Sam:
But I'm going to get my beer before you.
Chad:
I stand in line with three people instead of 30 and you know what? That really makes it worth it.
Sam:
But I will say, that's all the good. That's all the good and it's a whole lot of good.
Chad:
It’s easier to use.
Sam:
The one concern ... Oh yeah, it's super convenient. [crosstalk]
Chad:
A whole dance you had to do to buy a ticket.
Sam:
But first of all, the minor inconvenience with AMC is that, I'm sure you guys have noticed you have to, cause our audio engineer Jon, he signed up for AMC after we did ‘cause we were just going on about it. But the one drawback I've noticed is that you do have to buy your ticket like an hour-
Chad:
At least.
Sam:
Something like that, within that window cause if you get too close to that 50 minute mark, it just cuts off and you can't get tickets anymore. That's kind of annoying-
Chad::
That's a little annoying.
Sam:
You got to stay on the ball to an extent, but it’s not a huge deal.
Chad:
You can't be spontaneous about your movie going.
Sam:
My main concern, however, is ... Okay so let's say that AMC, they succeed and they're able to drive MoviePass out of business and discourage anyone else from trying this thing because they're going to be able to have the market on it because they're working with their own theaters and yada yada. I will note there are a couple of other theaters that are working out a similar thing-
Chad:
Regal has something like this.
Sam:
Regal has something like this in the works. But none of those theaters are around here so it doesn't really apply to us, specifically as much, just because we live in an AMC area, there's nothing but AMCs. All the theaters are AMCs. But my concern is if they succeed in that and they do drive MoviePass down, which I'm looking at an article right now that's saying MoviePass is in a 76% decline in new app downloads since June. That's huge. And AMC, in the past three months, in that span of time has gained 120,000 members and they're at about 380 right now just south of four.
And that's an awful lot considering that they just launched this recently. Let's say that they drive MoviePass out of business, how does their business model shift, if they no longer have that competition?
Chad:
Well I think, they can do the classic thing of raising prices if they want to, however I think AMCs a little bit smarter in making its move to learn that's the bedrock of the problem with MoviePass was price changes.
Sam:
Right [crosstalk] that's what started the avalanche-
Chad:
Yeah, I think if they're making money, they don't have to raise the price for quite a while and I think they've been smart about it because basically what they're doing is cutting out the middle man. Even though the middle man was created in the first place when they didn't need a middle man, but they're cutting out the middle man now.
Sam:
There was a dark time there, Chad. There was dark times then. We didn't even have the internet.
Chad:
No internet.
Sam:
No internet. How did people put their podcasts out if they didn't have internet?
Chad:
They put it on the radio.
Sam:
Oh. Well I'll be darned. But anyways-
Chad:
Or they just record it to a cassette tape, drove around in their Ford [crosstalk]Aerostar and throw the tapes out the window.
Sam:
Do you want to hear my thoughts on Superman 3? And just threw the tapes out the window.
Chad:
I'm going to need that Memorex case back, I need to record another episode. You just hit me in the face!
Sam:
Just if you listen to it, just mark a check off on it and then pass it to somebody else. But tell them they got to mark it ... I got to be able to track the views. Otherwise, I get demonetized. Alright I need a minute.
Chad:
Need a minute.
Sam:
Need a minute.
Chad:
Throwing tapes out of windows
Sam:
Yeah, we went there.
Chad:
We went there. Are we going to cover AMC getting sued?
Sam:
For no particular reason. AMC is NOT getting sued. MoviePass is getting sued.
Chad:
This is why you're in charge of the whole show. I keep saying the wrong thing, so why don't you start there?
Sam:
See that's the thing. That was my cue to pass this last little bit to you because-
Chad:
Oh I'm sorry
Sam:
No no no, I'm glad you brought that up. I was lost in the bit. MoviePass, just one quick note about MoviePass, and that's in the sinking ship that is their company.
Chad:
And boy is it sinking?
Sam:
I'm not trying to hate, I'm just calling it like I see it.
Chad:
You're calling a sinking ship, a sinking ship.
Sam:
They are being sued by their shareholders right now for alleged fraud because they are putting their members in select test groups because what happened is a couple months ago, they were given an option to opt into the new plan or their old plan stops. So if you don't opt in, then your MoviePass is just canceled. Well apparently if you didn't opt in now, you're going to be re-roped into it based on your old payments.
Because you’re in the select test group. And now the asterisk is that they're going to go back to the old billing cycle $9.95 and you can go and see one movie a day, probably still no repeats and I think first-runs are in it. But are we just going to repeat this song and dance until the money finally, finally runs out?
Chad:
Possibly
Sam:
It's just kind of sad at this point-
Chad:
It's a lot of opting and roping in and out and it's just deceivious cause they're not ... They're opting people in and then letting them know that they're opt-in and then you have to take the time to opt out.
Sam:
Yeah, by sending an email to the spam folder, probably?
Chad:
Yeah, I mean, that's how you opt out of things. That's how businesses are run.
Sam:
And then you really know about it whenever you check your bank account and you're just like “where is [crosstalk] uh I thought I canceled that.”
Chad:
I've been checking my bank account every day-
Sam:
MoviePass why can't I get rid of you?
Chad:
I've been checking my bank account every day just to make sure that I haven't been opted in without myself knowing about it. It's pretty ridiculous.
Sam:
It's got you paranoid.
Chad:
Yeah. I'm really worried about it. [crosstalk] I mean not that worried, but still.
Sam:
It's got you paranoid like a guy at a diner who's being chased by a trucker and you know that any one of these guys could be the guy in that truck.
Chad:
Oh that's ridiculous, that would never happen, especially in California.
Sam:
That would never happen on I-5.
Chad:
And not outside Bakersfield.
Sam:
No, not in 1971. Okay this is getting way too meta. I'm good. Did we cover all the bases? Are there any more bases left to cover?
Chad:
No I think that's pretty much it, A-List is awesome and I appreciate and I'll tell everyone how great it is. And they are NOT paying us.
Sam:
They are not paying us. They totally can if they want to, we have our information down below AMC if you want to work out a deal.
Chad:
Cough. Cough. Sponsorship.
Sam:
If you want to work out a deal, we will talk you up even more than we already did today.
Chad:
Shameless plug.
Sam:
Shameless plug.
Chad:
Shameless plug for somebody else's stuff, but I enjoy it so much.
Sam:
Anyways, that's going to do it for us today on The Minute. Thank you so much for listening. My name is Sam-
Chad:
I'm Chad
Sam:
And we are brought to you by Movie Night Autopsy, please hit down below if you're watching this on YouTube, send us messages any other way that you can find us. Send us messages there are just oh so many, and thank you as always for listening.
Chad:
What's up crew? If you've got any idea of what you'd like for us to talk about on The Minute or on Movie Night Autopsy podcast, hit us up on the social medias. You can hit us up on Twitter at movie_autopsy. Check us out on Facebook at Movie Night Autopsy. Always feel free to email us, contact@movienightautopsy.com.
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