MoviePass officially relaunched nationwide on Thursday in anticipation of the Memorial Day weekend.
Key Details
- The app is launching with several new pricing structures. A $10-per-month subscription will give users three movies per month, while a $40 subscription will give users 30 movies per month.
- 4,000 theater locations are currently available within the service.
- The app already has a user base of 10,000 subscribers.
- The average price for a movie ticket in 2022 was $10.53.
Why It’s Important
MoviePass is one of the most notable crash-and-burn business stories in the past five years. The app has been around for more than a decade but took off in popularity in 2018 with the promise of unlimited movies for a $9.95-per-month subscription, billed as “Netflix for movie buyers.” High usage drained the app’s cash, and the original version of the app closed in 2019 after several incidents of insolvency.
The new version of the app has been in beta for the better part of a year, testing the service with a limited pool of customers. CEO Stacy Spikes published his memoir in January to promote the approaching release of the revamped service and his history as a company founder.
While theaters have been wary and highly critical of MoviePass’s business model, multiple theater chains have embraced the idea of unlimited movie-ticket subscriptions. AMC’s Stubs A-List, Regal Unlimited, and Cinemark’s Movie Club offer deals on multiple discount movie tickets per month, in addition to coupons for concessions.
It remains to be seen if the app will see a similarly chaotic rollout and adoption, similar to the usage rates that caused the app to restructure and downgrade prior to its bankruptcy.
Notable Quote
“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. Our newly designed service offers our members greater choice and flexibility for how they use their monthly credits while continuing to encourage them to watch movies in theaters,” says Spikes.
