Hopefully you’re sitting down for this: MoviePass’ unlimited viewing option might never return.
During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe was asked if the subscription-based ticketing service would ever re-implement its one-movie-a-day offer. And let’s just say he didn’t seem too optimistic:
“Do you think you will go back to a movie a day?” THR asked Lowe at CinemaCon. “I don’t know,” he replied.
Is this unfortunate? Yes. Surprising? Not so much.
Earlier this month, it was reported that MoviePass’ too-good-to-be-true business model was costing the company millions of dollars. The service previously offered customers up to one movie ticket a day for about $10 a month. Though this incredible offer resulted in a subscription surge, it also put MoviePass in a pretty deep financial hole, according to Business Insider.
“MoviePass currently spends more to retain a subscriber than the revenue derived from that subscriber and MoviePass other sources of revenue are currently inadequate to offset or exceed the costs of subscriber retention,” the report stated. “This results in a negative gross profit margin. MoviePass expects its negative gross profit margin to remain significant until MoviePass can sufficiently increase its other sources of revenues to offset the losses or achieve substantial economies of scale.”
After questions of sustainability became increasingly concerning, MoviePass executives decided to ditch the one-ticket-a-day model for something less costly. The company recently announced it would offer new customers only four tickets per month along with a three-month free trial of iHeartRadio’s All Access. It was suggested that this was strictly a promotional offer and that the previous $9.95 month deal would eventually come back.
“We just always try different things,” Lowe said. “Every time we try a new promotion, we never put a deadline on it.”
