As MoviePass stumbled, Sinemia presented itself as an all-you-can-eat moviegoing alternative. Now, after quickly rushing through a series of plan changes and account terminations, the service has announced it's shutting down. A note on the front page of its website confirms what subscribers have suspected, citing "unexpected legal proceedings" (including a patent lawsuit filed by MoviePass) and lack of capital.
The company hasn't responded to inquiry about whether or not it will continue on in other countries, and has gone dormant on social media. While these subscription packages have stumbled, the concept seems viable for one group: the movie theaters themselves. At last count AMC's Stubs A-List program continued to grow, and Alamo Drafthouse has announced plans to try out the scheme with a Season Pass. And that may be a next step for the people that run Sinemia -- an earlier report by Bloomberg suggested that shutting down the service would let them focus on their business as a white-label provider building up subscription plans for theater chains.
Dear Customer,
Today, with a heavy heart, we're announcing that Sinemia is closing its doors and ending operations in the US effective immediately.
As Sinemia, we set out our journey with the vision to help as many moviegoers as possible to enjoy an affordable and better experience at the movies by a creating a movie ticket subscription service that adds value for both the moviegoers and the movie industry. Since 2014, we've been fine-tuning our model and serving movie-goers with a slate of affordable and flexible subscription plans.
We are all witnessing that the future of moviegoing is evolving through movie ticket subscriptions. However, we didn't see a path to sustainability as an independent movie ticket subscription service in the face of competition from movie theaters as they build their own subscriptions. Thanks to the cost advantage and cross-sell opportunities, movie theaters will be prominent in the movie ticket subscription economy.
While we are proud to have created a best in market service, our efforts to cover the cost of unexpected legal proceedings and raise the funds required to continue operations have not been sufficient. The competition in the US market and the core economics of what it costs to deliver Sinemia's end-to-end experience ultimately lead us to the decision of discontinuing our US operations.
Despite the best efforts of our team, it has been difficult for us as a start-up to continue providing our services to the moviegoers in the US without resources and enough capital to meet increased operations and legal costs.
We want to sincerely thank our customers that believed in us and helped us along the way for their love and support.
We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to share our dream with you.
Sinemia Inc.
