The past week has seen increased woes for MoviePass, which has struggled to stay afloat with an unsustainable business plan of providing unlimited movies for $10 per month. Last week, the service suffered its second outage (followed by an emergency $5 million loan) within weeks after upsetting subscribers by introducing Uber-like surge pricing, which tacks on up to $5 for the most popular movies. And over the weekend, users had a new beef when MoviePass altogether blocked Mission: Impossible — Fallout screenings from its service.
The Tom Cruise star vehicle performed well despite the hang up, which began to make itself apparent when screencaps surfaced to show that the film was “greyed out” to hopeful MoviePass users. CEO Mitch Lowe clarified to users that this move was intentional with a statement as the weekend began:
“As we continue to evolve the service, certain movies may not always be available in every theater on our platform. This is no different than other in-home streaming options that often don’t carry the latest shows or movies that may be available on other services.”
Of course, MoviePass users could still see the film, should they choose to open their own wallets and buy a ticket in the traditional manner. Yet since this is precisely what people were trying to avoid by subscribing to MoviePass, users began to voice their displeasure on social media. As one irritated subscriber noted, “Dont [sic] open a buffet if you dont have the food, motherf***ers!”
@MoviePass Any Theater, Any Movie, Any Day… then why can’t I see Mission Impossible: Fallout at all today? pic.twitter.com/QuQ0wG8BvN
— GuardiansofFoxworthy (@GuardiansofFox) July 27, 2018
MoviePass straight up not letting users see Mission Impossible under any circumstances. They're that friend who goes out to dinner then pretends he cant find his wallet when the check comes, lol.
— Robert (@caravaggiorob) July 27, 2018
Went to use MoviePass today to watch Mission Impossible but they created a blackout for every showing. So I paid out of my own pocket. Then bought a ticket to another movie, USING MoviePass. If I gotta pay, they do too. Dont open a buffet if you dont have the food, motherfuckers!
— Grandmaster B (@dougiebranson) July 28, 2018
https://twitter.com/DanRyckert/status/1022958704851910656
https://twitter.com/EdwardorEddie/status/1022981437761495043
https://twitter.com/rustyburns/status/1022824368492212224
https://twitter.com/ViewerAnon/status/1022951444624928768
Last week @MoviePass needed a loan to stay alive. Yesterday I no longer saw Mission Impossible screenings available. This morning I see NO times available for ANY movie in NYC. Anyone else? @MoviePass_CS any ideas?
— hari sreenivasan (@hari) July 30, 2018
https://twitter.com/myskullisred/status/1023692530909503488
Deadline quotes an industry distribution boss as predicting, “It will be a miracle if MoviePass is in business by the end of next week.” Indeed, it’s hard to fathom how the service can continue to exist while bleeding millions of dollars per month, especially after promising so much. Well, and tossing even more money into Gotti distribution, which only compounds the disastrous experiment. Stay tuned, for more MoviePass developments will surely arrive soon.
