MoviePass appears to be on its final legs, or possibly officially dead by the time I finish writing this. It ran out of money last Thursday, leaving moviegoers with no way to use their debit cards to buy movie tickets. MoviePass announced Friday that it obtained a $6 million dollar loan to continue paying it's debit card processors (source).

If anyone doesn't know, MoviePass is a service that for $10 per month allows it's subscribers to see one movie a day. I have been a subscriber for about 5-6 months. The subscriber could just use the app to select a movie and time, then use a pre-paid MoviePass debit card to purchase a ticket. MoviePass paid the movie theater full price for the ticket. With most movies priced at around $8-$12 each, more in some markets, everyone knew this could not be sustainable. They claimed they would make money by selling data.

When Avengers: Infinity War hit theaters, MoviePass announced that subscribers could only see a movie once; it would not pay for repeat viewings (source). This was one of their smartest decisions, which should have been the policy from the beginning. Although they advertised one movie a day, or 30 movies a month, it is near impossible to find 30 movies to see in a month in average size markets.

At the same time, they announced a policy requiring subscribers to send a photo of their ticket (source). It was annoying as a subscriber, but apparently an attempt to eliminate fraud. As someone enjoying the service, I certainly didn't want them to run out of money due to scammers.

Then they announced new policies that seem to have gone into effect this past week. These are the ones that will lose customers. First they announced a peak pricing policy, for popular movies on the busiest nights (source). This again almost sounds reasonable except that it's an obvious attempt to keep their subscribers from even trying to go to the movie theater on a Friday night. Well, I thought that wouldn't matter as I go in the afternoon when it's less crowded anyway. Then I looked at the movie selection yesterday and was surprised to see just about every movie would cost an extra $5.60, in the afternoon when movies are only $8.90 anyway, and sure to be playing in half empty theaters.

MoviePass then decided they would not pay for subscribers to see Mission: Impossible - Fallout (source). Their response was that Netflix and other subscription streaming services also did not include all movies (source). This was disingenuous. Netflix doesn't have every movie because they have to negotiate the rights to the film first. This is more analogous to how not every movie is playing at the local theater. MoviePass doesn't have to negotiate any rights. They decided to black out the most popular movie because they could save a lot of money.

But hey what do I care since I don't want to see that film anyway? However, when I looked at available movies this morning, I saw that Leave No Trace is also considered a "premium" movie and blacked out. It also blacked out the screen times for Blindspotting and Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot. That's strange. These aren't popular movies, but they are the movies I most want to see. And MoviePass knows this. After all, it's been collecting all my data.

This is what I saw on screen this evening for every movie theater in town:

MoviePass, I think you are no more, R.I.P. I enjoyed it while it lasted. I got to see popular films such as The Incredibles 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story and The Avengers: Infinity War. I got to take a chance on really good movies I might not otherwise have seen like Won't You Be My Neighbor?, First Reformed, Three Identical Strangers, American Animals and Sorry To Bother You. I liked Sorry To Bother You so much that I paid with my own money to see it a second time.

I got to play at being a movie critic, writing reviews of random movies. Of course without MoviePass I would have to pay full price for all these movies. I don't exactly have the luxury of free movies like a newspaper film critic. I was also able to be selective. I didn't write about films I didn't like or that didn't give me much to think about. I'm almost embarrassed to say that the last movie I saw with MoviePass was The First Purge. It was terrible, yet it made me think just enough to maybe write a review...eventually.

I bought lots of popcorn I might not have otherwise bought due to saving so much money on the price of movie tickets. And this makes me think that we may be losing what could have been a great service. It brought people out to the movies more often. The theaters profited from the money patrons had left over for concessions. The theaters,
and mostly the studios, were paid for all these movies. AMC even started trying out their own rival subscription service (source). A chain specific subscription isn't so great for those of us who love indie movies and arthouse pictures. Perhaps something will arise in the place of MoviePass, with a more sustainable model. Too often small release movies are shown in sparsely populated theaters, wasting space (and air conditioning). Why not find a way to offer discount tickets for these movies nobody will otherwise see? Perhaps the next MoviePass will be based on a model like that. Maybe I'm wrong and MoviePass is not finished, but I doubt it.

So, has anyone cancelled their subscriptions yet?

Co-founder and Curator of:

Do you like what we do? Please consider giving us an upvote or even a resteem. This will help us pay out higher rewards to the community which encourage even more people to use #cyclefeed.

PARTICIPATE ON @CycleFeed

1. Follow and upvote @CycleFeed
2. Follow our curation trail on Steemauto or delegate Steem Power: Check out our tutorial!
3. Use the tag #cyclefeed in your posts: Check out the requirements!

Join our sub-group on the Steemit Travellers on Discord!

With over 500 members already on the Steemit Travellers Discord, it is an excellent place to meet other travelers and chat about traveling! Now you are also presented with the Cycling sub-group, that has been created just for you, the Cyclist. The server is also the place where you can ask all your questions about CycleFeed.

Proud member of: