MoviePass has dropped from over 3 million subscribers to about 225,000, according to internal data obtained by Business Insider.
This is the latest sign of the collapse of the movie-ticket-subscription startup, which became an overnight sensation in the summer of 2017, when it drastically dropped its price to $10 a month (to see one movie a day in theaters). The plan proved so popular that MoviePass passed 3 million subscribers by June 2018, the company said. But the startup struggled to control its cash burn, which reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
After months of changing its features and price point to remain in business — and seeing its parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics, delisted from the Nasdaq in February — one month ago MoviePass announced an "Uncapped" plan in which there would be no restrictions on the number of 2D movies subscribers could see. There was a catch, however: MoviePass could throttle a subscriber's access at its discretion.
That new plan has failed to revive MoviePass' growth, according to the internal data. MoviePass has signed up only about 13,000 new subscribers since Uncapped launched. For comparison, when MoviePass launched its $10-a-month plan in 2017, the service hit 100,000 subscribers in the first 48 hours, the MoviePass cofounder Stacy Spikes recently told Business Insider.
Despite MoviePass' decline, the movie-ticket-subscription model is thriving. AMC Theatres and Cinemark are having success with such plans, and Sinemia has offered its tech to get chains like Studio Movie Grill and National Amusements to launch similar services. Alamo Drafthouse will also be offering its own subscription service by the end of the year, CEO Tim League told Business Insider.
Update: After publication, a representative for Helios and Matheson said to Business Insider that the numbers reported were "incorrect," but refused to provide any details or evidence to support that statement.
