No one would blame you if you haven't heard of MoviePass. It's a relatively unknown subscription package that to this point had let you go to one movie a day for the single price of anywhere between $30 and $50 a month, depending on where you live. That price, as reported by Bloomberg, is being reduced to $9.95 a month, potentially letting subscribers see up to 31 movies a month for $10.
It should come as no surprise then, that MoviePass is run by former Netflix executive and co-founder, Mitch Lowe, a company which has almost single handedly revolutionized the way we consume movies and TV. It's worth noting that there are some limitations to the subscription service, as you can only attend one movie a day, it can only be used for regular viewing and not 3D or IMAX, and the subscription is only good for one person, not an entire household. So at this point, everyone you typically go to movies with, will have to have their own subscription.
The way it works is that new subscribers are sent a unique Movie Pass Debit Card, which you swipe at the ticket counter when you get to the theatre. Movie Pass then in-turn pays the theater the full amount of the ticket, which in many places is more than the cost of the subscription itself.
So how does MoviePass make money if they are paying movie theatres up to $310 per subscriber? Well as it turns out, the company also just recently sold a majority of its shares to Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., a publicly traded data firm.
Ted Farnsworth, the CEO of Helios and Matheson says that the company's goal is to get a large subscriber base and then collect data on them, which could, in theory, be used to target specific advertisements to each user. The ads would then make up and surpass the difference in cost for the theater ticket.
If you're interested in checking out MoviePass (and potentially doing a free two-week trial), you can do so by heading over to the main website.
Source: [Bloomberg]
