Oh, MoviePass. You just continue to shoot yourself in the foot, don’t you?
As if the temporary outage experience last week wasn’t enough (and to many subscribers, it was the last straw), this weekend saw the world’s biggest film being taken off the service completely. And boy, oh boy, people are not happy.
If you’re a MoviePass subscriber (as am I), you probably opened the horrible app this weekend to notice a distinct lack of “Mission: Impossible — Fallout.” And if you (like me), decided to search for the film, you would have noticed that no matter what theater the film was playing at, there were no available times or dates that would allow you to use your subscription on the film. And then, if you’re a real cheapskate (such as me), you probably waited for this morning, thinking, “well, obviously they’ll let me use my MoviePass during the week, right?” And guess what? Nope.
That’s right, as problems continue to mount for the movie subscription service, this weekend saw yet another major issue strike MoviePass. No longer can you see any movie, any day, any time, once a day, for the low, low price of $10 a month. Now, with the addition of Peak Pricing (more on that in a second) and their latest service change, we’ll just call “Blackout Films,” it’s becoming more and more difficult to just use the service you pay monthly for.
So, to combat subscriber concerns, CEO Mitch Lowe released a statement discussing the fact that ‘Fallout’ is no longer a film being supported by the service. The whole statement is far too long to paste below, but here’s the relevant section:
“As we continue to evolve the service, certain movies may not always be available in every theater on our platform. This is no different than other in-home streaming options that often don’t carry the latest shows or movies that may be available on other services. For example, you can’t ever find ‘Game of Thrones’ on Netflix, nor is Season 4 of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ available there yet. Here at MoviePass, we have strived to make every movie in theaters available to you as part of your subscription, and Peak Pricing has allowed – and will continue to allow – us to do so.”
So, what are subscribers to do? What does Lowe suggest that the MoviePass faithful do to ensure they can see films like “Mission: Impossible?” Well, he doesn’t really have a great response. “Can’t find the movie you want to see on the app? Go to Twitter and let the studio behind it know. Want more e-ticketing theater options in your area, so that the movies you want to see peak less? Let your theater know you want them to partner with MoviePass,” he continued.
One of the films that many people could have used their subscription to see is Bo Burnham’s highly-anticipated “Eighth Grade.” The film is one of the indie selections that MoviePass is known to tout as their success stories. You see, the service always uses the lesser-known films to show how it impacts the box office. Well, depending on where you live, there was a big obstacle in the way of you using your subscription — Peak Pricing.
As filmmaker Simon Barrett (apparent MoviePass sucker, like the rest of us) tweeted, if you wanted to see “Eighth Grade” this weekend using your subscription, there was an additional surcharge of $8.00. That’s almost double your monthly subscription cost and damn near the price of a full ticket. In the case of Barrett, the cost of the surcharge is actually more than the cost of the ticket.
“MoviePass is charging an $8 surcharge on a $6 ticket at the Los Feliz 3. This app seriously has brought me so much joy with its zany mathematics that I’m tempted to pay,” he tweeted.
Ugh.
Just when you think MoviePass couldn’t do worse, it just continues to step on more landmines.
https://twitter.com/Simon_Barrett/status/1023336292791111681
