What to Know
- The new plan will be $9.95 monthly and will include "many major studio first-run films"
- MoviePass's parent company received a loan last month to help the company make payments to its merchant and fulfillment processors
- AMC's comparable subscription service has enrolled 175,000 subscribers, surpassing the company's initial expectations
MoviePass is again changing the terms of its movie subscription service, announcing Monday that customers will be limited to three movies per month for one fee.
Under the service’s new plan, moviegoers can see up to three movies each month for a $9.95 monthly fee, the company said in a news release. It is a significant change from its initial offer that allowed users to view one movie per day for the same price.
Customers will also receive up to a $5.00 discount on any additional movie tickets.
“We believe this new plan is a way for us to move forward with stability and continue to revitalize an entrenched industry and return moviegoing to everyone’s financial reach,” MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe said in a statement.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the new subscription plan, which goes into effect Aug. 15.
MoviePass changed its service plan after company data revealed few customers used the app to see a movie every day. Fifteen percent of MoviePass subscribers used the service to see four or more movies each month, the company said in the release.
U.S. & World
The new plan will include “many major studio first-run films,” the company said. When MoviePass announced its intention to increase the monthly fee to $14.95 last week, the service said users wouldn’t be able to watch major blockbuster films until the third week they were in theaters.
Customers were critical of the price increase, prompting the company to walk-back that decision when it introduced its new subscription plan Monday, stating that “we have heard -- and we have listened to -- our MoviePass community.”
The changes to the service also address ticket scalping and unauthorized card usage, both of which created additional expenses for MoviePass.
“We believe this new business model will immediately reduce our burn so we can refocus our efforts where they belong: making a permanent and positive change in this industry by creating an amazing theater-going experience and building a company that continues to benefit our nationwide community, said Ted Farnsworth, Chairman and CEO of Helios and Matheson, MoviePass’s parent company.
The decision to limit the number of movies users can see comes more than a week after MoviePass temporarily ran out of cash. At that time, customers reported on social media that they were unable to check-in.
As a result, its parent company received a loan worth over $6 million following a “service interruption” that prevented MoviePass from making required payments.
In the past few months, MoviePass has also prevented users from seeing the same movie multiple times.
In June, AMC introduced its own monthly movie program after criticizing MoviePass’s business model. AMC said last week its new program features more than 175,000 subscribers, exceeding the company’s own projections.