MoviePass Will Shut Down For Good on September 14

MoviePass announced on Friday it's shutting down the discount ticketing service on Sept. 14. From a report: MoviePass parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics notified subscribers that it plans to close down the service because its "efforts to recapitalize MoviePass have not been successful to date." It has formed a strategic review committee, made up of the company's independent directors, that's reviewing "strategic and financial alternatives" for the company. Among the options it's considering are a sale of the company in its entirety, a sale of the company's assets, including MoviePass, Moviefone and MoviePass Films, as well as the possibility of a reorganization of the company.

Color me unsurprised?

[raydobbs]

I am totally shocked - really, I am. Changing your Terms of Service constantly, charge people when your service is shut down, make it so they have to agree not to sue you when they log back in. I am only shocked it took this long before people said, Fuck This Shit, and left.

Movie Ponzie?

[goombah99]

So it seems like this is actually a new kind of legal Ponzie scheme.
1. get investors
2. Create a new subscription service with pay-a-year at a time
3. pay yourself a salary
4. lose money buying movies using the new subscribes year long subscriptions
5. wait for the capital to go dry
6. Move on--- you got paid a nice salary and learned a lot about managing a bussiness.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Nah, that model is burned now.

At least add "on a computer" to it to find new dupe... investors.

Not a Ponzie

[kiviQr]

They tried to grab substantial number of customers so they can get a leverage in price negotiation with Theaters/Studios. They failed with both.

Re:

[Zaelath]

We're losing money on every ticket, but we'll make it up in volume!

Yeah, that's not a scam at all.

It's got nothing to do with that

[rsilvergun]

the ToS changes were just there to slow down how fast people go to the movies.

The real problem was they massively underestimated how often people will go to the movies. It was supposed to be like a gym membership but instead folks were seeing 2-3+ movies a day sometimes. If I had to guess they had a lot of retirees and a lot of people hanging out for the Air Conditioning. Either way give people an unlimited movie pass and they'll actually use it.

1 year memberships?

[Synonymous Cowered]

Oh gee, look at that. Not too long after offering a 1 year membership, with a financial incentive to prepay the whole year, MoviePass is now shutting down. That was totally unexpected.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

That was totally unexpected. Who thought they would make it a year?

Re:

[Ryzilynt]

Refunding the recently purchased?

I am shocked. SHOCKED!

[93 Escort Wagon]

Well, not that shocked [youtube.com].

Meh

[Presence Eternal]

I never saw the value in it to begin with. Not much worth watching lately. I had a bunch of movie gift cards I sold at a loss a few months ago. I think the last film I saw in theaters was "Wreck-It Ralph Googles Turkey Drop". Nothing much of interest since then.

from the who-were-they dept

[AndyKron]

Darn. I completely missed that. Oh well, my life will just have to carry on without them, whoever they were.

Millennials say...

[freeze128]

"What's a movie?"

Re:

[bn-7bc]

I know you probably joke so take this riplay in the same way. See it as a rely long epiosde of a show with a complete story arc that has only on season of one episode (usualy lasting 90 minutes +)

Seen the new unlimited resort pass?

[charlie merritt]

I was amazed when 2 weeks ago some outfit started advertising an unlimited stay at any (selected?) resort, rebook, go elsewhere all for only $2,200 (or so) a month. The video shows a cascade of well known desirable destinations. This is the highest "subscription" rate I've seen for anything. I predict the same outcome as Movie Pass, for the exact same reasons.

Re:

[kenai_alpenglow]

So you could live at a resort for only $2200 per month? That's cheaper than a 1 room flat in SF.

Decided to stop throwing away money?

[Ryzilynt]

But whhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy........

LOL, MovieWhat?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I watched this entire debacle from afar, and I should have placed bets that it would end this way.

About time!

[mhkohne]

These clowns should have gone years ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Can we see more of these 'lose money forever' companies go down, please?

I loved using Movie Pass

[soft_guy]

It was nice to be able to go the movies as much as I wanted to with my wife and our friends. It was a good deal. Not a very sustainable business, but hey if rich investors want to pay for us to go the movies a lot for a couple of years until they run out of money from suckers who am I to not take them up on it?

Who needed it?

[eminencja]

Why would you need a go-between between yourself and a cinema? Think about Amazon - it's also a go between but offers something both to the buyer (an easy to use site with a large selection of goods, free shipping, etc.) and the seller (a platform, warehouses, delivery services). Now think about hotel booking sites. They do not deliver any physical goods but they too offer something. Customers have a large selection of rooms to choose from and hotels can find customers. Customers and hotels would be miles