RIP MoviePass
As of Saturday 14 September 2019, MoviePass has passed . The “not quite all-you-to-see” movie subscription service closed at age 8 after a long battle with theater chains, competitors, customers and ourselves.
MoviePass was born in 2011 in New York. For years, it has received moderate attention as an affordable way to watch movies in theaters. In 2017, the monthly cost of the service dropped to $ 9.99 for unlimited access to cinemas regardless of the owner. This change immediately brought the service to prominence, and by June 2018, more than three million people had signed it, including the author of the obituary.
Theater chains and studios raised concerns about MoviePass’s precedent for movie price, but in the end they had little to worry about as the service would not keep up with the average development timeline of a single summer blockbuster.
In MoviePass’s golden months, the service dropped to $ 6.95, free Fandor streaming subscriptions were added , and generally high-end cities were offered the opportunity to watch multiple movies per month for less than the price of a single regular ticket.
But it will also severely limit its “unlimited” plan , change its terms of service , disconnect and fall into the trap of secretly tracking users’ locations . The service fought to the bitter grapefruit end, which made it difficult for customers to refuse , and then even more difficult , not very difficult . Very difficult indeed .
MoviePass was backed by fans all the time, leaving comments online and sending screaming emails at journalists and bloggers in defense of the company, with $ 68.7 million in funding . He was not backed by rival Sinemia , who once paid people $ 10 to convince their friends to give up MoviePass. After months of quiet inactivity, the service was finally shut down by its owners, who said “efforts to recapitalize MoviePass have so far been unsuccessful.” That is, no one will give them more money to return them.
The service survived AMC Stubs A-List and Regal Unlimited , two cinema subscription services run by real theater chains that offer more limited but sustainable plans and that seem to have a real business model behind those plans.
MoviePass is not, but it will likely return in some new fresh new form, after its parent company looks for “strategic and financial alternatives.” And we will definitely cover this. If we can find new stock photos of popcorn.
Now let’s see a touching montage of life hacking lighting this candle in the wind.