MoviePass is on Life Support
by EG
MoviePass seems to have hit a brick wall with its money-losing business model, and late last week it briefly couldn't afford to actually let its subscribers see movies. Now it looks like they can go to movies, just not the ones that they really want to see. Read on for details.
Via Deadline.
MoviePass is apparently alive. It’s just that they won’t be selling tickets to big movies like Meg and Christopher Robin going forward.
We are very sorry to users having issues checking-in this evening. Some users have reported issues with card-based check-ins and we are working towards a fix on this technical issue. In the meantime, all e-ticketing remains fully functional.
— MoviePass (@MoviePass) July 29, 2018
Business Insider reported the latest update tonight for the $9.99/a month-all-you-can-see movie subscription program after MoviePass boss Mitch Lowe held an “all-hands meeting” following today’s outage in which he announced that upcoming major movies won’t be available to subscribers in the foreseeable future as the service desperately tries to regain its financial footing. Tracking has Disney’s Christopher Robin opening in the low $30M range this weekend (not so big by summer box office standards, but too big by MoviePass measurements) while Warner Bros. shark movie Meg is opening on Aug. 10 with a projected 3-day in the low $20Ms.
Business Insider couldn’t get a comment from MoviePass today and was referred to Lowe’s letter to subscribers on Friday which just raises even more uncertainty. In the note, Lowe says that “peak pricing has rolled out nationally.” So does this now mean that certain indie films like Blindspotting or Three Identical Strangers will be impacted by surge pricing? Great, just what an indie movie needs: An obstacle that prevents moviegoers from seeing it.
Also, Lowe’s note reads, “Bring-a-Guest and Premium Features (ie., upgrades IMAX 2D & 3D, RealD, and more) will begin rolling out soon.” How can that be when most major studio event films are available in Imax, RealD or 3D?
As we mentioned previously, it will be interesting to see what happens to MoviePass’ 3M subscribers from this point on.
Get the rest of the story at Deadline.
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