MoviePass Kills Its Annual Subscriptions In Its Latest Attempt To Survive

MOVIEPASS

The MoviePass movie is going to be amazing. The latest random news on the once mighty, now falling (and falling, and falling) movie subscription giant is this: Those cheaper annual subscription packages? Not only can you no longer buy them, those who had them are being downgraded to monthly. Wheeee!

The news came Friday, in an e-mail to all MoviePass subscribers.

“We want to thank you for being a loyal member of our annual MoviePass plan,” the message read. “Your commitment to MoviePass has contributed to making our vision for an accessible and affordable moviegoing experience a reality. After experimenting with different models and options, we believe that our current monthly plan captures the need of our community — keeping prices low while continually striving to offer a wider selection of films.”

That means no monthly option, just the monthly plan that now lets subscribers see three moves a month, though which movies are available per day is constantly changing.

“This new offering is part of the transition to our new subscription model,” MoviePass said Friday. “We’re excited to offer subscribers the option of going to three movies a month for $9.95 and providing up to a $5.00 discount for additional movie tickets. We are grateful to our MoviePass community and have offered a number of our annual subscribers the option for a refund if the new plan doesn’t align with their viewing preferences. With this transition, we intend to offer more film options so subscribers can continue exploring a wide variety of movies. We believe that our new plan is a positive change in the right direction and that it captures the needs and desires of most of our MoviePass community in our journey for an accessible and quality movie experience.”

The annual package was even cheaper than the monthly; where monthly subscribers were paying an unsustainably low $10 a month, the yearly was a jaw-dropping $89 total, for a movie a day, 365 days a year. That’s how it worked up until last month, when the company, losing millions — nearly $127 million in the second quarter, to be semi-exact — started restructuring.

First there were outages. Then they cut down the number of movies from one a day to three a month. Right now MoviePass users can only choose from six to ten movies daily, the selections always changing (and mostly either blockbusters and high-end indies).

Who knows what will come next? Or how long MoviePass will even exist? Or if they’ll just listen to Hasan Minhaj’s solution on how to save them? Like life itself, enjoy it while it lasts, even if this weekend they really want you to go see The Happytime Murders.