With an uptick in movie theater attendance this summer as the season delivered a strong line-up for audiences, Moviepass subscribers have been through quite the wringer. When the service premiered, it had good intentions to allow its customers to spend one monthly fee to go to the theaters multiple times, but in recent months, cracks in the service have apparent. Even after the app shut off briefly last month, affecting many of its subscribers because the service needed to borrow $5 million to make necessary payments to stay afloat, Moviepass still maintains that it's still doing just fine. It's recently made some changes to their service plan, but the coming week's selections still has popular movies not readily available for users every day of the week.
With a look at this week's Moviepass offerings, the service has increased from six to nine selections per day, contrary to their August 16 announcement that stated that options would be limited to six per day. Rom-com hit Crazy Rich Asians, for example, is present on the list, but only for Thursday and this upcoming Tuesday. Box office winner The Meg is only available on Wednesday this week. Mile 22, starring Mark Wahlberg, is also limited for Moviepass subscribers, showing up on the selection on Thursday and Wednesday. New release, The Happytime Murders will be available throughout the weekend from Thursday until Monday, though the film is not expected to be popular among audiences, per tracking.
Notably missing from this week's list is Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Christopher Robin and BlacKkKlansman. Mission: Impossible came out to great acclaim from audiences and critics, though Moviepass users were surprised that the service made it unable to see the film at all. When Christopher Robin and The Meg were released, Moviepass decided not to offer these titles in an effort to break even from their previous losses, with the rule that some new releases would be blacked-out for the first two weeks of release. Both of these films have been out for longer than two weeks, and The Meg is only barely available to subscribers.
After suffering losses, while Moviepass originally decided it would increase their prices to $14.95 a month, it decided on a new plan that lowered the price back down to $9.95. This limited subscribers to three views a month, with discounts of up to $5 on any additional tickets. The company also said it would offer "many major studio first-run films," with "many" being the keyword here, not "all." It should also be noted that even though the movies are available on the app, there is often limited theaters where one can use the service.
With the addition of nine selections instead of six, perhaps fans of indie films can rejoice as new releases such as We the Animals, Papillon, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Skate Kitchen and Juliet, Naked are up for grabs almost every day of the week. All frustrations aside, the service does allow subscribers to save money even if its business plan isn't perfect.
