Bitcoin at the Box Office: New Film “Dope” Accepting Bitcoin for Tickets
A new movie coming out on Friday will allow Bitcoiners to pay for tickets with bitcoins. You can already pre-order tickets for Bitcoin.
This was made possible through a partnership between third-rail payment processor GoCoin and the studio who created the film, Open Road Films, plus MovieTickets.com, the actual place where Bitcoin enthusiasts can buy the tickets.
The film is called “Dope,” and it is technically an independent film despite opening to more than 900 US theaters on Friday. It centers around a high school geek named Malcolm who is in love with technology, and at various points in the movie, he talks about Bitcoin. For instance, in the early part of the film, according to another website, he says, “I just read that money as we know it is dead. Soon the world is only going to buy and sell products using bitcoins. It’s like a complicated math equation.” A major part of the movie is when Malcolm and crew get into trouble and need to sell drugs quickly, at which point they utilize Bitcoin.
Integration in Progress
At time of writing, the MovieTickets.com integration with GoCoin had not yet been completed. However, CCN.com spoke to a representative of GoCoin over the phone and they said that all the work had been done, it was actually a matter of when MovieTickets enabled the payment option. Hopefully our call will also instigate GoCoin themselves to inquire with their partner. There are, after all, still a few days until the movie is officially released, so it’s nothing to get too excited about yet. Bitcoiners will be able to buy regular tickets the same as they can pre-order tickets.
Also read: Removing Risk With Bitcoin Payments: Coin Of Sale Partners With GoCoin
The real question in all this is if MovieTickets.com and others will begin accepting Bitcoin for regular movies, which don’t necessarily talk about Bitcoin, as well. The CEO of MovieTickets.com told another website that “we went above and beyond the common boundaries to drive ticket sales.” The theater industry has been in slow decline for several years with the rise of relatively cheap home theaters, tightened budgets, and on-demand entertainment.
It is hard to guess whether Bitcoin adoption would do much for a turnaround at this late stage. Nonetheless, there is a subset of the Bitcoin community who believe in “showing their support” to companies which accept Bitcoin, and there are still others who’d spend bitcoin and replace the same amount in order to prove that the decision was a wise one. Indeed, there are plenty who’d prefer their patronage be tallied in the Bitcoin column solely for the sake of supporting businesses who venture to accept it.
Those who live in major US cities will most likely be able to watch the movie beginning Thursday night, and official release is Friday. Interestingly, there are a lot of heavy hitters in the production staff of the movie, including Forrest Whittaker and Pharell Williams, who has four new songs in the movie, and both of whom have had long careers in show business. Not to mention Sean Combs. Open Road Films is jointly owned by theater chains AMC and Regal and was responsible for such modern classics as the Steve Jobs biopic, Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher.
