AMC Stubs A-List Subscription Hikes Prices in Number of States
By Dave McNary
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – AMC Cinemas’ Stubs A-List program, the theater chain’s monthly subscription service that allows customers to see three movies a week for $19.95 a month, will hike its monthly rate in the 16 U.S. states where the app is most popular.
In California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, the price will rise from $19.95 to $23.95 a month, starting on Jan. 9, 2019. The monthly cost will increase to $21.95 for subscribers in Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington state and D.C. Pricing will remain at $19.95 in the other states. The price for those who previously enrolled in A-List will stay without changing for 12 months after signing up.
“Our decision to keep the AMC Stubs A-List monthly price unchanged in 35 states, along with only a modest price adjustment in some key markets going in place in early 2019 will keep us in that sweet spot of successfully balancing profits and popularity,” AMC CEO and president Adam Aron said in a statement.
AMC also announced Monday that the A-List Stubs service — set up as rival to — has signed up more than 500,000 to its four-month-old subscription service. That’s far above what the chain had originally forecast. The milestone ratchets up the pressure on troubled MoviePass, which has drastically cut back its movie-a-day offering for $9.95 a month to only three movies per month.
AMC had expected to have 500,000 signups by the end of next June and 1 million by June of 2020. A-List is a premium tier of the AMC’s Stubs loyalty program and gives customers the ability to see movies in premium formats such as Imax, Dolby Cinema, and RealD. MoviePass can only be used for 2D films.
MoviePass’ offer of a movie a day for $9.95 a month became enormously popular earlier this year and attracted more than 3 million subscribers. But the service lost money for parent Helios & Matheson Analytics, which led to the dramatic curtailing of options for customers — coming off a loss of nearly $127 million for the second quarter.
