“We hope our next big feature will be the ability to purchase tickets on the site. We believe that users will love the ability to not only see the showtimes but to complete the purchase right there, making the process extremely convenient for audiences.”
Our world is full of glitches that require the right entrepreneur to come along and see great business potential in…
“I work in an area that has three Ster-Kinekor cinemas, a Nu Metro, a CineCentre, and a @movies cinema all within a 7km radius. We love movies and go quite often, but every time we wanted to go, we had to open four tabs in a web browser to see all the showtimes at the different cinema chains as well as going to Metacritic to see reviews and metadata on the films we were interested in.”
“Now it’s all right there in one spot on moviez.co.za,” says Ryan Haidarian, co-founder of Forefront Media Group which recently set up a comprehensive film website for avid movie-goers, curbing the time wasted on multiple cinema sites.
The one-stop shop features all the main cinema chains in South Africa including Ster-Kinekor, Nu Metro, casino-based cinemas under @Movies as well as the Cine Centre chain.
On the homepage there are five tab options which include: Now Showing, Opening This Week, Coming Soon, Family Zone and Top Rated. These are also found under the Movie menu section and are accompanied by a list of movies catered to each category.
So far the list includes international and local commercial movies showing nationwide, however through time and future improvements Haidarian would like to also feature independent cinemas.
“It’s definitely on the list of future features for our site – we’d love to have the Bioscope and The Labia and other independent cinemas have their showtimes displayed on moviez.co.za but right now they don’t have an API or feed to give us that our system can pull the data from automatically,” he comments.
Haidarian confirms that the process undergone to get these feeds from commercial cinemas has also not been an easy task.
“It’s been a long and challenging process as we’ve gone through six development teams. There have been numerous technical challenges with all of the different feeds that we get from the different cinema chains and consolidating those into one seamless one that our site runs off.”
Clicking on any of the listed films takes the user to the specific movie page which includes the film’s poster, a trailer, synopsis and other metadata. This page also includes a list of reviews received which can be clicked to access detailed reviews. There is also a rate card regarding the film via a specialised metacritic system.
“We use a rating system from metacritic that ranks all of the top films currently on circuit based on the scores that are given from global reviewers. Each film on our site that has been reviewed internationally has a rating associated with it that users can see in either a green, yellow or red box with a score between 0-100. These scores are also ranked from highest to lowest on the Top Rated page – in this way users can quickly go to that section of the site to see how each film currently on circuit ranks with reviewers, helping them make a decision on which film to watch,” explains Haidarian.
At the bottom of each movie page are the showtimes for the day as well as notification on which cinema is closest to the user at that very moment. The geo-location is also available immediately when you log on to the website. Users can let the site auto-detect their current location and view a list of cinemas based on their proximity, or enter the location that they will be visiting later.
Another option is that users can just select their preferred mall and see all the showtimes of that specific location, or rather select a film and let the auto-detector give you the cinema and latest showtime. Specialised cinema screening formats such as 2D, 3D, 4D and IMAX are also available options on the site.
More details on the functionality of the website can be found on the tutorial section of the website.
Moviez had a soft launch three months ago and has seen its users increase by 50 per cent each month confirms Haidarian. “We’ve been relying on users to spread the site via word of mouth and hope to see the site continue its growth trajectory,” he adds.
Moviez has a subscription newsletter which comes out before the end of each week regarding any updates and special offers at various cinemas for that weekend.
“The subscription list along with our social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are where we let our users know about new releases, special offers, ticket giveaways, etc.,” Haidarian shares.
More improvements and developments are envisioned for the site in the near future. However while the site is still in beta, users are urged to leave their suggestions and comments regarding any problems encountered on the site.
“We hope our next big feature will be the ability to purchase tickets on the site. We believe that users will love the ability to not only see the showtimes but to complete the purchase right there, making the process extremely convenient for audiences,” Haidarian concludes.
