MoviePass slims to 3 movies for $10 per month plan to survive
The company has now changed its plan strategy 11 times since the service launched in 2011.
MoviePass has a new solution to its ongoing financial drama: simplification. One plan, three movies, $10 a month, starting Aug. 15.
The change comes less than a week after MoviePass said it would raise its prices to $15 and drop blockbuster availability, which followed on the heels of a failed attempt to institute peak pricing and backlash when people couldn't get in to see Mission: Impossible - Fallout, because it couldn't pay its payment processors.
The company clarified its new pricing structure for us via email:
- Subscribers can see three movies/month for $9.95 and up to a $5 discount for any additional movie tickets
- Includes many major studio first run films
- Suspended Peak Pricing and Ticket Verification for subscribers who have migrated to the new plan
Monthly subscribers will be given the opportunity to subscribe to the new plan when their current plan comes up for renewal -- beginning Aug. 15. Annual subscribers will not be affected by this plan until their renewal date.
Note that the terms state "many" major films. It sounds like the company's hedging its bets in case it faces any disputes with big chains or ticket-fulfilment glitches as it has in the past. AMC has forced MoviePass into workarounds and recently started its own subscription service, for example. It also drops the controversial fraud-preventative ticket verification option that required you to send a photograph of your ticket stub.
This is the eleventh major change in the company's pricing strategy in the seven years it's been around. According to the initial report in the Wall Street Journal, the most recent financial woes started when MoviePass was bought by Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc. Helios dropped the price to an unsustainable $10 per month for a movie a day.
The move also follows a defensive statement issued last week by Helios and Matheson -- "We're still standing" -- intended to soothe skittish investors and subscribers. Is anyone else thinking of Monty Python and the Holy Grail right now?
