Tweet
MoviePass, the troubled movie-ticket-subscription service that shut down in 2019, is planning a comeback.
Stacy Spikes, the MoviePass founding CEO, announced during an event on Thursday that the service would relaunch this summer.
Spikes said that the goal is for MoviePass to be responsible for 30% of movie-ticket sales nationwide by 2030.
"People didn't see MoviePass as a discount, they saw it as a discovery tool," Spikes said.
Spikes did not say what pricing on the new MoviePass subcription would be, but he outlined some features he said would be included:
After struggling to stay afloat for years, in 2017 the company was bought by Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY).
Under the leadership of HMNY CEO Ted Farnsworth and new MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe, the company launched a $10-a-month subscription price to see a movie a day. Within two days, subscriptions went from about 20,000 to about 100,000. In less than a year, MoviePass had over 3 million subscribers and had became a cultural sensation.
But the price was financially unsustainable. During the Farnsworth and Lowe era, MoviePass blew through hundreds of millions of dollars, and Spikes — who said he'd raised concerns internally about the low price point — was fired in 2018.
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.
In June 2021, Farnsworth and Lowe settled with the FTC and reached a $400,000 settlement with the California district attorneys.
In November 2021, Spikes bought back the company after his bid was approved by a Southern District of New York bankruptcy court.
On Thursday, Spikes said that a portion of the new company would be available to anyone who wants to invest in it, which would come with a lifetime membership to MoviePass. He didn't specify the mechanism by which outsiders would be able to invest in MoviePass, though he said he wanted the relaunch to be "built by its fanbase."
Before HMNY declared bankruptcy, it was a publicly traded stock, and some investors who bet on MoviePass told Insider they lost more than $100,000.
As MoviePass relaunches, Spikes also wants to make the case that the service can help movie theaters as they continue to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, even as many chains — including AMC Theatres, the largest in the world — have since launched their own ticket-subscription services.
MoviePass said it compared its internal ticket-sales data with overall box-office data from the tracking website The Numbers, and concluded that it drove 4% of the nationwide market share across all movies in 2018. It also said that it accounted for 19.4% of nationwide tickets sold for the 2018 indie movie "Sorry to Bother You" and 18.3% of the tickets for the sci-fi film "Annihilation." Insider could not independently verify the figures.
https://www.businessinsider.com/movi...details-2022-2
Stacy Spikes, the MoviePass founding CEO, announced during an event on Thursday that the service would relaunch this summer.
Spikes said that the goal is for MoviePass to be responsible for 30% of movie-ticket sales nationwide by 2030.
"People didn't see MoviePass as a discount, they saw it as a discovery tool," Spikes said.
Spikes did not say what pricing on the new MoviePass subcription would be, but he outlined some features he said would be included:
- A credit system, where credits will roll over month-to-month
- Credits would be tradeable to other people
- Users would be able to bring another person when purchasing tickets through MoviePass
After struggling to stay afloat for years, in 2017 the company was bought by Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY).
Under the leadership of HMNY CEO Ted Farnsworth and new MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe, the company launched a $10-a-month subscription price to see a movie a day. Within two days, subscriptions went from about 20,000 to about 100,000. In less than a year, MoviePass had over 3 million subscribers and had became a cultural sensation.
But the price was financially unsustainable. During the Farnsworth and Lowe era, MoviePass blew through hundreds of millions of dollars, and Spikes — who said he'd raised concerns internally about the low price point — was fired in 2018.
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.
In June 2021, Farnsworth and Lowe settled with the FTC and reached a $400,000 settlement with the California district attorneys.
In November 2021, Spikes bought back the company after his bid was approved by a Southern District of New York bankruptcy court.
On Thursday, Spikes said that a portion of the new company would be available to anyone who wants to invest in it, which would come with a lifetime membership to MoviePass. He didn't specify the mechanism by which outsiders would be able to invest in MoviePass, though he said he wanted the relaunch to be "built by its fanbase."
Before HMNY declared bankruptcy, it was a publicly traded stock, and some investors who bet on MoviePass told Insider they lost more than $100,000.
As MoviePass relaunches, Spikes also wants to make the case that the service can help movie theaters as they continue to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, even as many chains — including AMC Theatres, the largest in the world — have since launched their own ticket-subscription services.
MoviePass said it compared its internal ticket-sales data with overall box-office data from the tracking website The Numbers, and concluded that it drove 4% of the nationwide market share across all movies in 2018. It also said that it accounted for 19.4% of nationwide tickets sold for the 2018 indie movie "Sorry to Bother You" and 18.3% of the tickets for the sci-fi film "Annihilation." Insider could not independently verify the figures.
https://www.businessinsider.com/movi...details-2022-2
Comment