Remember MoviePass, the unlimited movie theater ticket subscription service?
It was founded in 2011 but didn’t rise to mainstream prominence until 2017, when a New York-based analytics and consulting company called Helios & Matheson purchased it and lowered the price for its unlimited subscription service to just $9.95 per month, causing its user base to skyrocket to over three million in less than a year.
The company’s co-founder, Stacy Spikes, recognized that this price point was unsustainable; before the company was purchased and the price lowered, users paid $40 to $50 per month for an unlimited subscription. Spikes shared his concerns and was promptly fired from the company he had helped create and worked with for over half a decade.
Sure enough, MoviePass’ broadly appealing price point was its downfall — the subscription service exploded in popularity over a very short time frame but lost money on virtually all of its users in doing so.
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Movie tickets, which the company had to purchase at face value on behalf of its users, often cost as much or more than it was charging for a monthly membership, and many of the service’s more dedicated fans were seeing five or even ten films a month. By late 2019, even after backpedaling on the terms of its unlimited subscription plan, the company was forced to call it quits.
In 2022, however, MoviePass rose from the ashes with original founder Stacy Spikes at the helm and a new business model in place. Here’s the full story of the company’s rise, fall, and resurrection — and how its pricing and subscription options work now that it’s back.
MoviePass was founded in 2011 by Stacy Spikes (front) and Hamet Watt (back).
San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images/Getty Images
MoviePass’ 2011 launch and first beta test
MoviePass was founded in 2011 by entertainment industry entrepreneur Stacy Spikes and business partner Hamet Watt with financial backing from production company Moxie Pictures and an array of private equity venture capital firms, including AOL Ventures and Lambert Media.
The service — unlimited movie theater tickets for a monthly subscription price — was to be beta-tested in the San Francisco market one weekend in late June 2011 across 21 area theaters, according to Deadline, but the intended trial run was a bust.
The company secured its users’ tickets via deals with third-party ticketing services rather than through the theaters themselves, according to The Wrap, and the announcement of the service’s launch was met with less-than-favorable responses from theater chains AMC and Landmark, both of which publicly decried MoviePass’ disruptive new offering.
While theaters would be paid for any tickets granted to MoviePass users, cinema executives were nevertheless outraged by the service’s sudden introduction. In speaking with The Wrap, then-Landmark-CEO Ted Mundorf stated, “We are not interested in outside entities setting ticket prices for us,” while a spokesperson for AMC said in a press release that “Plans for this program were developed without AMC’s knowledge or input … As MoviePass is currently designed, it does not integrate well into our programs and could create significant guest experience issues.”
Between the negative comments in the media from theater execs and the fact that most cinemas stated they would refuse to accept MoviePass vouchers, the attempted trial run burned out on the starting line. A Deadline writer called the attempted beta test “one of the most boneheaded stillborn launches in recent entertainment history.”
Partnership with Hollywood Movie Money
MoviePass had to go back to the drawing board and figure out what to do next. Since major theater chains themselves were so far unreceptive to the initial concept, the company partnered with Hollywood Movie Money, allowing MoviePass access to the latter’s network of 36,000 theaters and its existing voucher system for a subsequent nationwide beta test. Through this partnership, MoviePass users could select a movie, showtime, and theater, then print out a Movie Money voucher that would serve as their ticket.
Theaters received full price for tickets through this system, meaning MoviePass could only be profitable if the service was underused by subscribers — that is, if users saw few enough movies per month that their subscription payments exceeded the face value of the tickets they used.
This new system seemed to clear up some of the hiccups the company faced with its initial beta test, but it also posed a new one — the print-at-home voucher concept was clunky and out of date, and users didn’t like it. In October 2012, MoviePass scrapped the voucher concept, replacing it with a mobile app and affiliated MoviePass charge card. Users simply had to select a movie on the app after arriving at the theater, and the price of their ticket would be loaded onto their charge card so they could pay for it at the ticket counter.
This model didn’t require consensual theater partnerships, as the charge card worked just like a normal credit card and could thus be used at virtually any theater. Once again, AMC was less than pleased with MoviePass, which it seemed to view as an unwelcome entertainment industry interloper. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, a spokesperson from the chain said “AMC has no affiliation with MoviePass, and we’ve had no discussions with the company about participation.”
By this point, the company’s unlimited movie subscription plan had been rolled out to general audiences nationwide and ranged from $24.99 to $39.99 depending on location, and for cinephiles who regularly visited theaters, it was a pretty good deal.
The plan still lacked mass appeal, however, as most individuals did not go to the movies that often. 61% of adults surveyed by Harris Interactive said they rarely visited the cinema as of early 2012, according to an article in Time.
Mitch Lowe (pictured here at the 2021 Monaco Streaming Film Festival), who previously worked for Netflix and Redbox, was named CEO of MoviePass in 2016, shortly before the beginning of the company’s downfall.
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New CEO and Helios & Matheson acquisition
In 2016, Mitch Lowe, who had held executive positions at both Netflix and Redbox, was named the company’s new CEO. This seemed like a good fit, as MoviePass had long been referred to as “the Netflix of movie theaters.”
In the summer of that year, the company launched a new tiered subscription structure through which users could pay different monthly fees depending on whether they wanted access to two, three, or unlimited movies each month — the unlimited tier now cost between $40 and $50.
The following summer, a data analytics and brokerage firm called Helios and Matheson purchased a controlling stake in the company, and things began to change — fast. Along with the company’s new ownership came a new price: $9.95 per month for unlimited movies. This move was expected to drastically expand MoviePass’ user base, allowing it to collect, market, and sell vast amounts of user data, which was ostensibly how the company planned to make money in the long term given its loss-leader subscription price.
New users swarmed to sign up for MoviePass, and its website crashed as it was overloaded with traffic after the announcement of the new price. In less than a year, the company’s subscriber count exploded from around 20,000 to more than 3 million. Helios and Matheson continued injecting money into the company, increasing its ownership as it did so.
The company’s new owners had initially said that the new price point for the unlimited subscription would last only until the service gathered a solid base of subscribers, but it exploded in popularity and new subscribers continued to flock to MoviePass, and so they doubled down on the low price, prioritizing rapid growth over a chance at near-term profitability.
Cofounder Stacy Spikes, who repeatedly warned company leadership that the new pricing model was unsustainable, was fired in January 2018.
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Downfall and bankruptcy
In February 2018, the subscription price for the unlimited tier was lowered to $7.95. By March, it was lowered further $6.95. In April, the company suddenly removed the unlimited tier as an option for new subscribers before reinstating it several weeks later at a higher price.
It also revealed that it had been losing around $20 million per month since September of the previous year. In a going concern statement, the company’s auditor expressed doubt about MoviePass’ ongoing financial viability.
The company continued to lose money, and in June 2018, it instituted a surge pricing model that added additional fees for tickets to popular movies or desirable showtimes. Over that summer, MoviePass began to sell bonds ($164 worth) and company merchandise to raise working capital as it continued to sink deeper into the red financially.
In July 2018, MoviePass’ inability to pay vendors caused a service outage that rendered subscribers unable to secure movie tickets through their memberships. The company borrowed $5 million in order to stay afloat, and CEO Lowe issued an apology, stating the service was back “up-and-running with stability at 100%.” Nevertheless, customers continued to report problems using their MoviePass subscriptions.
Irritated customers began to see blackouts on popular new movies like “Mission Impossible: Fallout” and “The Meg.” By August, the unlimited subscription was replaced with a three-movies-per-month plan (with additional tickets costing $5 each), and only six films were available to choose from each day.
Customers left the service in droves, and MoviePass lost a million subscribers by October 2018. In November, the company was hit with the first of two class action lawsuits as a result of having blacked out certain movies from its service. By the following spring, only around 225,000 subscribers remained.
In September 2019, MoviePass finally threw in the towel and announced its closure as parent company Helios and Matheson filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
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Repurchase, relaunch, and current status
In late 2021, a bankruptcy judge approved the sale of the company’s remains back to Stacy Spikes—he finally had his baby back, and this time, he was determined to do things right.
By August 2022, Spikes announced that the company would be relaunching its movie theater subscription, albeit with a new model. Three subscription tiers would be offered, none of them unlimited, and pricing for these tiers would vary by market. 775,000 customers signed up for the service’s waitlist, and a beta version was rolled out in Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City on September 5.
In early 2023, the company secured additional funding to help finance its relaunch in additional markets, which by the end of January included Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and Tampa Bay. After the year’s end, Spikes announced in February of 2024 that the service’s users had watched over a million movies since its resurrection, and that 2023 was the company’s first-ever profitable year, attributing this success partially to the company’s new credit-based ticket acquisition system (more on this in the next section).
As of 2024, MoviePass is fully back from the dead, and this time, it just might survive — although it does have more competitors than ever. Regal, AMC, and Cinemark have all launched their own branded subscription services, many of which include discounts on concessions, something MoviePass can’t offer since it isn’t theater-specific.
How does MoviePass work in 2024? Subscription models and pricing
MoviePass is now available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It can be used at many major cinemas, including Regal, AMC, and Cinemark.
Here’s how the service works in its current iteration:
Unlimited subscriptions are no longer available. Instead, MoviePass offers three subscription tiers: basic, which costs $10 per month; standard, which costs $20; and premium, which costs $30. Within the MoviePass app, every showtime of every movie is assigned a number of credits. More popular movies and showtimes cost more credits. The $10 basic subscription includes 34 credits that can be used toward up to two movies per month.The $20 standard subscription includes 72 credits that can be used toward up to three movies per month.The $30 premium subscription includes 113 credits that can be used toward up to four movies per month.In New York and Southern California, prices are higher. The basic plan costs $20 per month, standard costs $30, and premium costs $40. The monthly credits associated with each tier are the same.
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