Screw daytime soap operas. The best melodrama around is happening before our eyes with MoviePass.
After the incredible (or devastating, if you work at the subscription service) week of news, which included outages on Thursday and yesterday, the surprise blocking of “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” and the ridiculous surcharges to see the films the service will actually approve, the drama surrounding MoviePass just keeps getting worse and worse for the company.
Today, in a press release by parent company Helios and Matheson, MoviePass announced measures they’re going to take in the next 30 days to combat the hemorrhaging of money that has put them on the brink of doom. And not surprisingly, these new measures mean there will be less and less opportunity for you to use your subscription.
As for the new measures, the three main ways MoviePass plans to right the ship include a price increase to $14.95 per month in the next 30 days, the inability for subscribers to watch first-run movies that debut on 1,000 screens or more during the first two weeks of release, and “implementation of additional tactics to prevent abuse” of the service. That means no “Christopher Robin,” “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” or “The Darkest Minds,” in addition to ‘Mission: Impossible’ this weekend for subscribers.
With these new measures (which they began rolling out last week, without telling anyone), the company expects to cut “monthly cash burn” by 60%.
“Over the past year, we challenged an entrenched industry while maintaining the financially transparent records of a publicly traded company. We believe that the measures we began rolling out last week will immediately reduce cash burn by 60% and will continue to generate lower funding needs in the future,” said Ted Farnsworth, Chairman and CEO of Helios.
The press release also explains why MoviePass is limiting the first run movies, and why it started with ‘Mission: Impossible.’ According to the release, limiting the use of the service on the major debuts limits their losses, but also allows them to “stay loyal to its mission to empower the smaller artistic film communities.”
However, as we pointed out yesterday, it’s hard to justify that mission to “smaller artistic film communities” when their Peak Pricing initiative is making it not cost-effective for subscribers to see films like “Eighth Grade.”
“These changes are meant to protect the longevity of our company and prevent abuse of the service. While no one likes change, these are essential steps to continue providing the most attractive subscription service in the industry. Our community has shown an immense amount of enthusiasm over the past year, and we trust that they will continue to share our vision to reinvigorate the movie industry,” said Mitch Lowe, MoviePass CEO.
For those that don’t follow this news closely, this press release was necessary after a Monday that was very bad for the company. Helios stock fell through the floor after the disastrous weekend, trading below $1 a share. If it continues to trade below a dollar for 30 days, it will become delisted by NASDAQ, which would almost certainly mean the business is toast.
So, unfortunately, it appears the MoviePass dream is now coming to an end. Surely, these new practices are going to scare off users and probably lead to cancelations. That’s the price you pay for being a company that really doesn’t want people to use the service they pay for, I suppose.
