AMC Subscription Moviegoing Service Tops 400,000 Subscribers

By Dave McNary

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – AMC Cinemas has signed up more than 400,000 to its three-month-old subscription service, Stubs A-List — far above what the chain had originally forecast.

The milestone ratchets up the pressure on troubled , which has drastically cut back its movie-a-day offering for $9.95 a month to only three movies per month .

AMC, the biggest cinema chain in the U.S., launched the Stubs A-List program 14 weeks ago, letting users see three movies a week for a monthly fee of $19.95. The new subscriber total is “an enormous milestone,” CEO Adam Aron said in a statement Thursday.

“While we do not plan to issue A-List enrollment statistics on a weekly basis, our hitting more than 400,000 enrolled members only three months and a week after launching the program is an enormous milestone,” Aron said. “Those who have been following our progress with A-List are aware that we had originally expected 500,000 enrollments at the one-year mark and 1,000,000 enrollments at the two-year mark. Above our wildest hopes, in just 14 weeks, we have achieved 80% of our one-year goal and 40% of our two-year goal. This all bodes well for the future of increased moviegoing in America.”

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.