MoviePass Is Coming Back: Here’s What A Subscription May Get You

MoviePass is making a comeback after finding that its business model was unsustainable in 2019 and shutting down. Now with a new plan in place, the movie-ticket subscription service is looking to relaunch by this summer.

Company CEO Stacy Spikes made the announcement about MoviePass’ return on Thursday, saying the service has a goal to comprise 30% of all movie-ticket sales nationwide by 2030, Business Insider reported.

While pricing wasn’t revealed just yet for the service, Spikes did say that MoviePass would use a system where credits would be rolled over month-to-month, according to Business Insider. These credits would also be tradeable with other subscribers, and members of the subscription service would be able to bring another person along when they purchased movie tickets through their MoviePass subscription.

There would also be different prices set by movie theaters for off-peak times, and subscribers would be able to earn more credits by watching ads from advertising partners with facial recognition employed to ensure the ad is watched in its entirety, CNET reported.

“This is happening only on your phone, uniquely to you, and the credits that earn are your credits that go into your virtual wallet that you get to spend, so it's your own money,” Spikes said, as reported by CNET.

The idea behind the company was to let people see a fixed number of movies each month in theaters for a monthly membership price.

After numerous financial challenges, the company was bought by Helios and Matheson Analytics in 2017, when the concept of a $10-a-month subscription was launched, allowing members to see one movie a day. MoviePass saw its subscriber base take off with the promotion, generating 3 million subscribers in less than a year, Business Insider reported.

But the pricing model was a financial disaster for the company and couldn’t be sustained, causing MoviePass to spend hundreds of millions of dollars.

The financial chaos caused Helios and Matheson Analytics to be delisted from the NASDAQ in 2019 and it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy along with MoviePass in 2020.

The company was also under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, four district attorneys and the New York attorney general, according to Business Insider.

A settlement was reached with the FTC and also with the California district attorneys for $400,000.

Spikes, who had been fired in 2018, bought the company back in November and is now offering a portion of the company for investment, which would come with a lifetime MoviePass subscription, among other benefits, CNET said.