MoviePass files for bankruptcy after shutting service in 2019
The movie subscription service won't be revived.
- I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
Show's over.
Defunct movie subscription service MoviePass and its parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics filed for bankruptcy Wednesday. The decision came after MoviePass considered "strategic alternatives," the SEC form says. The companies filed for Chapter 7 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
"A Chapter 7 trustee will be appointed by the Bankruptcy Court to administer the estate of the company," the filing said.
MoviePass, a subscription service that allowed customers to purchase multiple movie tickets for a monthly fee, shut down services on Sept. 14 when its efforts to recapitalize were unsuccessful.
MoviePass came under fire in 2018 by reactivating accounts and asking former customers to opt out of being subscribed again. That came after MoviePass mayhem that included surge pricing at peak times, a temporary service outage attributed to insufficient funding and a Mission: Impossible blackout.
In August 2019, the company also faced criticism after it was reported that MoviePass changed passwords to keep users from ordering tickets. Later that month, it then left customers' credit cards exposed online.
Helios and Matheson Analytics didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
