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Entertainment: Pressure builds at MoviePass
Reality is catching up with MoviePass, said Brian Barrett in Wired.com. One year after launching a $10 per month unlimited movie ticketing service “that seemed too good to be true,” the company will hike prices by 50 percent, limit access to blockbuster films, and try harder to crack down on misuses such as giving tickets to friends. Following months of “setting great big piles of money on fire to maintain operations,” the company last week ran out of cash and required an emergency infusion of $5 million simply to “resume services.” It’s unclear if these latest moves can keep it afloat. “From the beginning, MoviePass’ business model attracted a fair share of skeptics,” said Brent Lang in Variety.com. Once considered a “revolutionary new service shaking up an exhibition industry that seemed allergic to innovation,” it scooped up 3 million subscribers in just a few months. Yet it became clear the company’s plans were flawed: It had to pay theaters full price for every ticket its customers claimed. Each time a user joined its service, MoviePass lost more money. Now that its stock has fallen below 50 cents (down from $32 in October), it finally looks like “the end of the line.”