Did you happen to catch “Gotti” this weekend? Judging by the box office receipts, you probably didn’t. However, if you’re a MoviePass subscriber, you definitely know about the film. The John Travolta film about the crime boss was heavily promoted by MoviePass, and apparently, it paid off.
According to a report by Deadline, of the $1.67 million “Gotti” earned over the three-day weekend, a whopping 40% of it came from MoviePass subscribers. And a couple things come to mind when you see a statistic like that.
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First, the power of MoviePass is undeniable. The service has proven that they’re effective with marketing to their base of subscribers. “Gotti” isn’t the first example of this, either. They’ve routinely proven that many of their subscribers will go and see mid-budget or indie films using the service. And as we know, those people probably wouldn’t have seen those films otherwise. So, in that respect, you can’t scoff at the service’s ability to market.
That being said, “Gotti” is a film that MoviePass has a financial stake in. So, as is pointed out in the Deadline report, this is an example of a film studio (MoviePass) purchasing their own tickets to see their own films. Yes, there were butts in the seats, but at the cost of the people releasing the film. So really, is this a win?
However, the second interesting fact about “Gotti” is the horrible reception the film received. The Travolta film currently sits at the worst possible Rotten Tomatoes score of 0%. That means there’s not one review collected by the aggregator that is positive. Makes you wonder just how low that box office total would have been if MoviePass wasn’t involved at all. Perhaps MoviePass is the only reason the film even broke $1 million (and the 40% stat backs that up).
All things considered, this is both bad and good news for the subscription service. People are using the service like there’s no tomorrow. Unfortunately, if the product isn’t good, there’s no amount of “free” tickets that will save it.
