Does a movie per day for as little as $10 a month sound too good to be true? It was just two years ago.MoviePasswas a service that allowed users to pay a flat monthly fee (which was much less than a movie ticket) and see a movie a day for the entire month. And you weren’t limited to small theaters either; you could go to some national chains. However, their business model turned out to be unsustainable, and the company announced they were closing in 2019 and filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
Major movie theaters like AMC and Regal finished what MoviePass started. With plans like AMC Stubs A-List and the Regal Crown Club, MoviePass was forced to remain competitive in the market. This resulted in lowering its prices to as low as $9.95 a month, which caused financial issues for the company.
Now, just three years later, MoviePass is back and ready to bring people to the movies again afterteasing a return last year. Here’s what to know about the new MoviePass and when you can join.
What Happened to MoviePass?
The original iteration of the company was founded in 2011 by Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt. What started as a voucher system, with users having to print something out to take into the theater, transformed into a mobile app with prepaid cards attached. In 2016, after a successful beta launch in 2012, Mitch Lowe became the CEO of the company. Lowe brought in several ideas, like a tiered price model that would give users access to differentsets of moviesand show types depending on the tier they chose. These tiers included two movies/month, three movies/month, and unlimited movies/month at various price points.
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In conjunction with Spikes being pushed out of the company, these issues resulted in the startup going under.
The Revamped MoviePass
In 2021, original owner Spikes was approved to take over the company, starting MoviePass on the path to a relaunch. Like many services, MoviePass has come back with a tiered program, allowing customers to pay $10, $20, or $30 monthly. Each tier will give users a different number of credits to use that month. The number of credits needed per movie will vary on factors like time of day or the format of the film. At this time, it is unclear how many credits are associated with each tier or how many credits the average movie ticket would cost.
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MoviePass has also solved a key issue that was part of their initial downfall. Rather than pay full price for tickets through the theaters they worked with, they’ve negotiated different rates with their partners. Spike spoke toNPRabout these negotiations, stating:
“Even prior to launch, we’ve negotiated partnerships with more than 25% of all the theaters. If you take out AMC, Regal and Cinemark, we’ve got 40% market share outside of the big three.”
Spike recognizes that his service won’t benefit those living in areas with only one theater company. It would make more sense for someone who lives in a town with only an AMC theater to join the theater’s Stubs A-List program. But, he’s confident people will like the flexibility and freedom MoviePass provides in towns with more than one theater company.
“But if you want the freedom to go wherever you want and find the same value, then you’re going to want something like MoviePass.”
The service is set to return on or around June 03, 2025, with initial access going to the beta users that signed up in late August. The initial waitlist sign-up included 30,000 people in five minutes, which caused the site to crash.Insiderwrites that within the first 24 hours of the sign-up going live, nearly half a million people had signed up for the beta period. Service will roll out in stages, dependent on the areas most represented on the waitlist.
While you can’t join right now (unless you are one of the lucky beta users), there is hope that a successful relaunch will open the service up to everyone soon.
