The MoviePass story is not over yet according to company co-founder Stacy Spikes. The company launched in 2016, offering unlimited movie theater visits for a flat subscription price, but it closed in 2019 due to financial issues. Spikes announced the MoviePass relaunch last week at an event in New York City.
Spikes told a crowd of reporters and industry guests that MoviePass will be back this summer, and he was blunt about why he believes it will succeed this time. Spikes co-founded the company but he was fired in 2018 after the analytics firm Helios and Matheson purchased the company. As has been extensively reported, Helios and Matheson’s mismanagement was likely responsible for MoviePass’ failure. Spikes certainly seems to think so, and he is intent on avoiding those mistakes this time around.
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“A lot of people lost money, a lot of people lost trust,” Spikes said on Thursday. He summarized the company’s rise and fall, as well as the process he just recently went through to purchase its remnants from the now-bankrupt Helios and Matheson. He even joked about the features that may have been too generous to subscribers, such as the “Power User” tier.
This time around, Spikes said that MoviePass will operate more as a “co-op,” with users holding a small stake in the company depending on their membership tier. “We’re looking at this from another point of view,” he said.
Spikes did not seem nervous about relaunching this company in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying: “Moviegoing is not going anywhere.” He also said that the new version of MoviePass will be “powered by web3 technology,” invoking some form of blockchain that might scare off skeptics.
Spikes’ description of how the service will work now are not the easiest to parse, but it sounds like subscribers will get a set number of “credits” for theater visits each month. Those credits can be rolled over from month to month, traded amongst users or used to bring a friend along to the movie with you. As before, credits may not be usable during “peak moviegoing hours” or on new, crowded releases.
Spikes urged interested fans to keep an eye out for the chance to become beta testers for MoviePass in the months to come, promising some perks including free credits for those that sign up early. So far, there is no early signup list or an exact date for the MoviePass relaunch.
