That was definitely their plan, (1) burn cash to get enough customers (2) use leverage of large customer base to get deal for lower cost tickets from theaters (3) finally make a profit. A problem is that to really leverage their customers for step (2) they'd have to believably threaten to block their subscribers from using that theater which will also cause some people to leave. In the mean time theaters would only decrease their take by giving them the deal. Not terribly surprised the theaters aren't enthusiastic about the whole company.
