Rebooted MoviePass Says It’s Looking To Expand Nationwide
Stacy Spikes | Founder of MoviePass | Getty
MoviePass, a rebooted version of the app that once burned through cash promising theatergoers all-you-can-watch features for a single fee, says it’s now going to expand nationwide again during the busy box office Memorial Day frame.
In its latest incarnation, the firm, run by Stacy Spikes, has subscription plans that range from $10 a month (for one to three movies) as well as $40 a month (for 30 movies a month). And the company claims that moviegoers can use the app at 4,000 locations. “By opening up MoviePass to film lovers nationwide, we are expanding our support of the movie theater industry by helping drive traffic to all theaters during the critical summer season,” stated Spikes.
In January, the company said it raised funding from a number of financiers led by venture firm Animoca Brands, expanded to nine U.S. markets and inked partnerships with chains including B&B Theatres, Cinepolis Luxury Cinemas and Landmark Theatres.
The move marks the latest gambit for a brand whose parent company filed bankruptcy in 2020 and which has pivoted business models since it was first started. In 2011, Spikes was among founders launching MoviePass with a test run in San Francisco, billing the service as “Netflix for movie buyers” and promising all-you-can-watch theater tickets for $50 a month. Immediately, the largest circuit, AMC Theatres, tried to blunt any momentum and its then marketing chief said it “was news to us to see” its locations as participants in the test.
It was years later that MoviePass’ boom-and-bust story broke through to most of the public. That was when former Netflix co-founder Mitch Lowe joined in 2016 and then the Ted Farnsworth-run data firm Helios and Matheson acquired the service a year later, setting MoviePass on a cash-burning course of a $9.95 per month price tag, ballooning subscribers up to an unsustainable 2 million at one point. (Lowe and Farnsworth are no longer with the company, and were sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year for allegedly violating federal securities laws, which they contested.)
The move to Helios and Matheson Analytics coincided with MoviePass slashing its monthly price. Lowe heralded the move, saying the pricing scheme “completely disrupts the movie industry in the same way that Netflix and Redbox have done in years past.” MoviePass said it hit 150,000 subscribers — up from the 20,000 it had when it cost $50 monthly.
Despite MoviePass paying full freight for tickets, major theater chains have been wary about the service devaluing the cost for going to the movies. In Aug. 2017, AMC Theatres issued a statement headlined “Not Welcome Here” that noted: “holding out to consumers that first-run movies can be watched in theaters at great quantities for a monthly price of $9.95 isn’t doing moviegoers any favors.” But the world’s largest theater circuit had changed its tune by April 2018, perhaps figuring that if MoviePass wanted to buy tickets at full price it wouldn’t stand in its way. AMC CEO Adam Aron said of its business model, “We don’t see where those numbers add up.”
At the time, National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) chief John Fithian brushed aside the notion that the industry needed a self-labeled savior. (Customers, many of which used the service to go to see movies in theaters multiple times a month, were skeptical too. In a National Research Group poll conducted for The Hollywood Reporter in April 2018, 63 percent of respondents said they thought the service was too good to be true.)
Unlike when MoviePass first launched, theater chains now tout their own monthly membership programs, including AMC’s Stubs A-List (which had 900,000 subscribers pre-COVID) and Cinemark’s Movie Club. The average cost of a ticket has now risen as well, as of 2022 it was $10.53, per NATO.
At its subscriber peak — when it grew from 150,000 users to 2 million in less than a year by steep discounting — the company touted its impact on box office grosses. (Helios and Matheson Analytics filed for bankruptcy in January 2020.)
Spikes has now positioned the new MoviePass as a discovery platform to studios, helping to drive moviegoers to films other than the big blockbusters and as a sort of tech provider to theater chains, helping to fill seats at slow times. It’s unclear if circuits will welcome the help.
