Movies

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703566504576202890753419286.html

By LAUREN A. E. SCHUKER

Groupon Inc. is going to the movies.

The fast-growing website, which specializes in mass-emails touting daily coupons, plans to unveil a promotional tie-up with a Hollywood studio Wednesday. It is the first of many offers the site says it is planning with media companies in the coming months.

Groupon has previously served up deals for magazine and newspaper subscriptions, the Redbox movie-rental service and bundles of movie tickets, but hasn't offered a substantial national deal for a specific movie.

Through Groupon, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. will offer half-price, or $6, tickets to its new suspense thriller "The Lincoln Lawyer," which hits theaters Friday. The deal goes live Wednesday at midnight and runs through late Thursday evening.

For Lions Gate, the Groupon deal is an opportunity not just to sell tickets to the movie but to drum up buzz around it.

After sharing revenue with Groupon and theaters, the movie studio will earn far less than it does for a typical ticket. But the ability to promote the film across Groupon's roughly 60 million subscribers makes it worth it, said Michael Burns, vice chairman of Lions Gate.

"This deal offers us a very efficient way to let a lot of people know about our movie and then at the same time give them a compelling value proposition," he said.

Mr. Burns said Lions Gate still launched a relatively traditional marketing campaign for the film, including billboards and TV ads.

Groupon will advertise the deal to subscribers via emails and spots on its site. In addition, many of its roughly 10,000 affiliates—mostly websites and newspapers—will also do so.

Hollywood is casting about for new ways to get moviegoers into theaters amid the growing popularity of at-home entertainment options, ranging from Web video to videogames.

At the same time, Groupon and other sites that email subscribers deeply discounted daily deals are pushing hard to branch out beyond fare like cheap facials and happy hours as competition heats up. LivingSocial, a Groupon competitor, recently offered two movie tickets through Fandango.com for $9.

Groupon President Rob Solomon said the company is in talks with all the major studios and plans to start offering discounted tickets on all sorts of movies in the coming months.

Groupon's foray into movies is a preview for other media deals to come, said Mr. Solomon, including possibly cable-television subscriptions.

"It makes a lot of sense for us to use our platform to sell all forms of media," from books or magazines to live performances, Mr. Solomon said. "If we can sell bicycles, we can definitely sell cable subscriptions."

Some people involved in the movie, a story about a Los Angeles criminal-defense attorney who operates out of the back of his Lincoln sedan, were initially hesitant about doing the deal.

"I know we have a terrific film so I was concerned about hurting it," said Tom Rosenberg, chairman of Lakeshore Entertainment, which financed most of the roughly $40 million movie. "But I was persuaded once I saw the number of households Groupon has... and how powerful a blast to those users could beSomething has to change about the marketing of movies, and I hope this could be it."

Groupon will likely offer somewhere between 100,000 to one million tickets to the film, according to people familiar with the matter. Groupon's Mr. Solomon declined to comment on the volume of the deal.

But volume won't matter for the outcome of the movie discount, said Lionsgate's head of marketing, Tim Palen, who emphasizes it's just about reaching people. "The minute this deal hits online, we've already won," he said.