MoviePass offers low-cost movies, collects consumer data

MoviePass is a film nerd’s dream.

The subscription service allows users to see one movie a day at a theater for a single monthly cost. The service isn’t new, but it’s become popular among a lot more than movie buffs in the past few months.

During its first six years as a company, MoviePass relied on the idea that most of its 20,000 subscribers wouldn’t use the service. It’s the way many gyms make money: Convince users to sign a contract, then hope they’ll never actually show up to use a treadmill.

But when Mitch Lowe, a Netflix co-founder, took over MoviePass as CEO in June 2016, he opted to flip this revenue model on its head. First, he teamed up with data firm Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., which bought a controlling interest in the company. Then, in August, he announced a radical overhaul to the company’s pricing model, dropping the cost from about $50 to $9.95 per month.

Instead of hoping subscribers skip out on the movies, Lowe wants MoviePass customers to visit the theater as often as possible. Because the more movies its subscribers see, the more data the company rakes in. And that’s where the real dough is.

“The big money for us was always understanding the consumers habits and the data, because no one’s ever done that,” Ted Farnsworth, CEO of Helios and Matheson, told The Washington Post.

After the pricing change, the service exploded in popularity, adding 150,000 subscribers in two days, Lowe told The Post. Since then, its user base has grown to 1.5 million subscribers. It added 500,000 of those in last month alone. (For comparison’s sake, it took Netflix about four years to reach 1 million subscribers.)

MoviePass is trying to drive customers to movie theaters at a critical time. Movie attendance in 2017 dropped by more than 6 percent from the previous year, according to Box Office Mojo, which noted about 82 million more tickets were sold in 2016 than 2017.

The average movie in America costs $8.97, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners. In cities such as New York and Washington, tickets can run $15 to $20. MoviePass customers would only need to see one or two movies a month to get their money’s worth. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, 11 percent of American and Canadian moviegoers already do just that.