MoviePass Might Return In 2022

MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes successfully bought back the company out of bankruptcy and wants to relaunch it next year. Insider reports: Spikes had placed a bid of an undisclosed amount to the trustee handling the bankruptcy of Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY), the former parent company of MoviePass. "I can confirm that we acquired MoviePass out of bankruptcy on Wednesday," Spikes said in a statement to Insider. "We are thrilled to have it back and are exploring the possibility of relaunching soon. Our pursuit to reclaim the brand was encouraged by the continued interest from the moviegoing community. We believe, if done properly, theatrical subscription can play an instrumental role in lifting moviegoing attendance to new heights."

Spikes told Insider that since this summer, he'd been working on putting the money together to place a bid to get the company back. He said he made the offer last month. Though Spikes would not disclose the amount, he said his bid was lower than the $250,000 minimum the trustee set in 2020. Customer data and email addresses were not part of the sale, Spikes said. Spikes hopes to relaunch MoviePass sometime next year. A new site has been created for the relaunch, iwantmoviepass.com, and its logo will now feature a black background with white lettering, ditching its previous red background.

Spikes founded MoviePass with Hamet Watt in 2011, creating a service that let moviegoers see a certain number of movies a month in theaters for one monthly price. After struggling to stay afloat for years, in 2017 the company was bought by HMNY. HMNY was delisted from the Nasdaq in 2019 and both MoviePass and HMNY filed for bankruptcy in 2020. At the time of MoviePass' bankruptcy filing, it said it was under pending investigations by the FTC, SEC, four California district attorneys, and the New York attorney general. This June, Farnsworth and Lowe settled with the FTC and reached a $400,000 settlement with the California district attorneys.

Nope, they'll keep charging your credit card

[S_Stout]

We've already seen how people couldn't cancel their account and kept getting charged. These people can not be trusted.

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[saywhat99]

Well, to be fair, MoviePass was bought out, and a new CEO put in place. They burned through tons of money and Stacy Spikes (the guy who just bought it out of bankruptcy) was fired at some point for raising concerns. I agree with you to some degree and would very much treat this new version with a grain of salt; however, I still think it's at least positive that the individual who was forced out for raising concerns is the one bringing it back. But I suppose only time will tell.

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[MooseTick]

I've had that issue with places that keep charging me no matter how I try to stop it. And banks make it extremely difficult to stop and/or restrict those charges. So now, I try to use those refillable credit cards for services that I feel may be sketchy. If they don't meet their obligations I can just let the money run out and they are out of luck. And they aren't even directly tied to me so they can't even effectively send me to collections. They could probably track me down if they tried, but it wouldn't

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[tgeek]

What's different this time is with home streaming availability, it'll fail faster.

Fix the business model first

[tlhIngan]

The theatres have nothing they can do with ticket prices. The revenue split is basically 100% to the studios for the first two to four weeks of a movie's release (basically when 90+% of the money is made).

So theatres aren't likely to ever make "bulk cheap tickets" available because every single penny goes to the studio. It costs the theatre money to screen a movie because they don't make any revenue off ticket sales.

The only way to recoup that is to sell concessions, which is why it's overpriced fountain dr

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[bill_mcgonigle]

100% to the studios for the first two to four weeks of a movie's release ... It costs the theatre money to screen a movie because they don't make any revenue off ticket sales.

So everybody benefits from not having empty seats. This ought to align incentives.

With online ordering there ought to be a way to reliably predict about how full a showing will be, depending on several factors.

For example, if by 3pm only 10% of the seats are sold they may anticipate a 50% fill for a 7pm show (80% of sales at the door).

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[AmiMoJo]

I don't think the theatres do benefit from just filling seats. The movie company wants the same cut no matter how discounted the ticket was, so unless the concessions make up the difference AND profit on top it's not worth it.

People who are into Moviepass are probably not the kind of people who spend a lot of money on concessions.

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[sound+vision]

There's been a trend the last 10-15 years for theaters to start serving decent food beyond just candy and popcorn. Like any restaurant there's a large variation in the food quality, but the best one I've found offers food that's somewhat better than an average Denny's, at not quite double the price. Go outside of peak hours, and you can get a movie and a full meal for under $30, whereas your typical weekend AMC trip will cost you $20+ for a movie and a bag of burnt popcorn. It seems like not just a better v