Since it launched in 2011, MoviePass has been a great subscription service for cinephiles looking to get a a discount on their frequent visits to the theater, but the service made waves earlier this month when it announced that it would be lowering its price for unlimited films to $9.95 a month. With a price like that, it's understandable to wonder if providing such a cheap deal would pay off for MoviePass. Lo and behold, it has, because the service has hit more than 150,000 subscribers, more than seven times the amount it had at the end of last year.
Moviepass ended 2016 with around 20,000 subscribers, when you had to pay $14.95 for the cheapest package. But just two days after the service announced its $9.95 deal at the beginning of August, so many new people signed on that Moviepass hit the target it had originally hoped to reach by late 2018. Deadline also learned from Helios and Matheson, the analytics firm that bought Moviepass, that over a six day period that ended August 20, Moviepass attendance at one unnamed, partnered theater chain grew from 206 one week to 4,137 the following week, while another unnamed chain saw its Moviepass numbers grow from 203 to 1,795 during the same period.
Those who subscribe to MoviePass are able to see one regular 2D movie per day, though there a few restrictions with what meet the criteria for not paying the full ticket price. Nevertheless, this user increase is great news for those who've been hoping that the decreased MoviePass price wouldn't crash and burn. And needless to say it's an excellent deal for people who love the big screen experience on a regular basis, as now they're just paying the same amount as they would for a standard Netflix subscription (give or take a few cents). There could be problems later down the line if subscribers use the service too often, but the company is hoping to offset that risk by striking more deals with theaters and studios as attendance continues to rise.
However, this price decrease hasn't been without controversy. Shortly after Moviepass announced its new deal, AMC Entertainment released a statement making it clear it did not support this change. In fact, AMC disapproves of MoviePass' move so much that it has banned users in the Denver and Boston markets from using the service to purchase e-tickets. However, buying a physical ticket at an AMC theater in these markets is still doable, and AMC won't ever be able to permanently prevent people from using MoviePass at its locations because the service's passes are issued by Mastercard.
We'll be keeping an eye in the coming months to see if MoviePass can keep this momentum going and if it announces any other deals or changes that rock the entertainment industry.
