Madrid (EFE).- The actors Luis Tosar and Aura Garrido have sponsored this Wednesday the launch of the first film subscription plan in Spain, available as of today and in a staggered manner in the 37 cinemas, with 450 screens, that the Cinesa group has all over the country.
The launch will be staggered, starting today in five cinemas in Madrid and five in Barcelona and by the end of the month it will be implemented in all of them, according to what Ramón Biarnés and Toni Illa, the group’s general and commercial director respectively, explained at a press conference.
Cinesa offers to go to the cinema “without limits” for a monthly subscription of 15.90 euros or an annual subscription of 149 euros. In the case of its LUXE rooms, the price rises to 18.90 euros per month and 189 per year.
The subscription is nominal, only one person can benefit, but there is no limit to the number of sessions you attend. “There is no small print, no cheating or cardboard”, Biarnés stressed, “if you want to go to the morning session, the afternoon session and the night session, you can do it”.
The ODEON group, in which Cinesa is integrated at a European level -the global parent is AMC, world leader- has implemented similar programs in Germany, where it has been operating since December 2015, and in the United Kingdom, since March 2016.
“They are working fantastically, but not all spectators go to that model, it is a complement and a booster of attendance”, Illa pointed out.
Biarnés has specified that if they have not started it before it has been due to “technical limitations” that they have already solved. He has also emphasized that they have held talks with all the distributors – with whom they negotiate the profit margins of each film – before the release.
“There is uncertainty and we understand it but we believe that it was a product that had to be launched,” he stressed. “We are absolutely convinced that it is going to help bring people back to the cinema, where you really have to see the movies.”
Luis Tosar has pointed out that cinema has always fought battles in its history and has faced bad omens, but it has come out ahead. “The experience of watching movies can be compared to few others, it is collective and individual at the same time, it is something impossible to achieve in the living room at home.”
Aura Garrido has valued that the initiative can favor “smaller” films, given the situation of having to choose. “Now you won’t have to choose, you’ll be able to see them all,” she said.
Asked about other measures that have been taken recently in the United States, such as modifying the price of cinema tickets depending on the film or the location in the theater, Biarnés has ruled them out for the moment.
“That can be done in a mature market, we haven’t proposed anything similar at the moment because what we want is for going to the movies to be an easy experience.”