MoviePass has given customers and investors a wild ride over the last year and a half. And that’s thanks to its unpredictable business strategy and execution rather than the entertainment it was supposed to be offering with its movie subscription service. Now, as reported by CNBC, MoviePass is almost certainly kicking the bucket tomorrow, September 14th. However, it’s still looking for a new life…
MoviePass’ parent company announced the news in a press release today that it’s looking to sell or reorganize the service to somehow keep it alive…
Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc. (the “Company” or “HMNY”) today announced that its board of directors has formed a strategic review committee (the “Committee”), composed entirely of the Company’s independent directors, to identify, review and explore all strategic and financial alternatives for the Company, including a sale of the Company in its entirety, a sale of substantially all of the Company’s assets including MoviePass™, Moviefone™ and MoviePass Films™, a business reorganization or one or more other extraordinary corporate transactions, together with the assumption or settlement of the Company’s liabilities in connection with any of these alternatives. The Company requests that all bona fide transaction proposals and expressions of interest be directed to the Committee at SRC@hmny.com. There can be no assurance that the Committee’s review process will result in any transaction.
The details explain that MoviePass will stop offering its service tomorrow, September 14th and note that “the Company is unable to predict if or when the MoviePass™ service will continue.”
on September 13, 2019, MoviePass™ notified its subscribers that it would be interrupting the MoviePass™ service for all its subscribers effective September 14, 2019, because its efforts to recapitalize MoviePass™ have not been successful to date. The Company is unable to predict if or when the MoviePass™ service will continue. The Company is continuing its efforts to seek financing to fund its operations. There can be no assurance that any such financing will be obtained or available on terms acceptable to the Committee.
All of this isn’t a surprise as the company has a comically awful history of business decisions. Here’s a look at some of the preposterous events chronologically…
Back in March of 2018
But then a week later…
In April 2018, the unlimited model MoviePass was built on is nixed for the first time…
Then another restriction a day later.
Annnd back to unlimited…
But MoviePass is “running on fumes.”
In July 2018 the service saw a major weekend outage.
Then it went completely offline because it ran out of $…
Next, major releases are banned for users.
And how about a price hike…
Now in August 2018 ehhhh, maybe not, how about price hike reversal and drop unlimited again!
Two weeks later, lawsuits popping up as losses are made visible.
And a day later, new restrictions…
September 2018 sees some surprises for former customers.
MoviePass somehow scrounges up $65M in funding…
New plan as of December 2018 is to “break even” on ticket sales
March 2019… maybe original content is the answer? LOL…
Annnnd another business model change…
Honestly, the fact that MoviePass made it another six months is more surprising than the service shutting down tomorrow. RIP MoviePass, that is unless you figure out some wacky way to be resurrected 😂.
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