Roughly a year ago, the subscription service MoviePass debuted an all-new pricing strategy which many considered too good to be true. The company has faced a fair amount of troubles in recent months, as the popularity of the service has forced them to take drastic measures to stay afloat, including adding sporadic price surges, popular films being exempt from the service, and complete outages for all films. The CEO issued an apology to all of its customers.
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“First and foremost, I want to personally apologize to each of you for the inconsistencies and unreliability of our service over the past few days. Additionally, I regret our lack of proactive communication with you during this time; we are working hard to improve the communications to our community moving forward,” Mitch Lowe’s letter read. “Over the last several days, we’ve begun making changes to our service that will help us continue to offer our members a high-value, low-cost, in-theater movie experience.”
Prior to their new model, the service’s price rose to $50 a month, allowing theater-goers to see any movie they’d like at participating theaters one time. The service dropped the price drastically to $9.99 a month, while also lifting restrictions on how often you could see a movie.
Lowe’s statement noted, “We believe that the company we have built — the fastest growing subscription company in history with more than 3 million members — has revolutionized the movie industry in the U.S. The first half of 2018 saw the total box office grow by almost 10 percent compared to last year, and we know MoviePass is responsible for a significant portion of that unprecedented growth.”
The CEO’s statement pointed out that, for the service to continue working at all, some new policies will soon be put into place.
These new policies read:
“We must reduce availability for big new-release titles, such as Mission: Impossible – Fallout and other popular new releases, at least for a while as we adjust the business model. We are working on making this more clear in the app so you know which titles are available.
“Showtimes that are offered through our service will vary from day to day, and every showtime may not be available. We encourage you to check the MoviePass app for showtimes before you leave for the theater.
“While our customer service team has made great strides of late, we still have a long way to go to provide the most responsive customer service experience for you. In the meantime, access to immediate support may become limited. However, we are working to prioritize the requests of members who are at the theater and introduce more self-help tools, as well as focus our resources on fixing glitches and bugs in the app.”
Additionally, the new service will cost an additional $5 a month for subscribers.
While it may be frustrating that the company’s previous model will no longer be available, customers who were familiar with the companies older pricing plans still view $15 a month for multiple movies a good deal.
Stay tuned for details on new MoviePass policies.
What do you think about the CEO’s statement? Let us know in the comments below!
[H/T MoviePass]
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Image courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
