MoviePass is suspending its service on July 4 to enhance the app
Subscribers have been told the outage could last days, but they won't be charged during this period.
- 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.
MoviePass is going to create an app that its users "deserve."
MoviePass will be suspending its service at 2 a.m. PT on July 4 while it works on improving the app. The company has spent months working on updating its subscriptions to "provide the level of service you deserve," it said.
MoviePass came under fire last year by reactivating accounts and asking former customers to opt out of being subscribed again. And that came after the MoviePass mayhem that included surge pricing at peak times, a temporary service outage attributed to insufficient funding and a Mission: Impossible blackout.
"We have listened and we understand the frustrations of our subscribers," Mitch Lowe, MoviePass CEO, told subscribers in an email Wednesday. "We plan to make this improvement by utilizing an enhanced technology platform, which is in the final stages of completion."
Monthly subscribers will be automatically credited for the number of affected days, and annual subscribers will have those days added to their one-year terms. The company will cease signing up new customers during the service interruption.
MoviePass doesn't know how long the outage will be, and wasn't specific on what will be added to the app besides "more useful information," more features and a better user interface.
MoviePass in March 2018 dropped its $9.95 per month plan to $6.95, but then the price went back up. A month later, it then altered its terms of service so you could see any given movie only once.
In May 2018, its unlimited plan vanished, but returned a few days later. After that, the service made an effort to combat fraud by requiring ticket-stub photos.
MoviePass brought back the $9.95 unlimited plan in March this year.