MoviePass Cuts Film Selections for Subscribers to Six-Seven Titles per Day
By Todd Spangler
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – MoviePass, the cash-strapped movie-subscription service which lost nearly $127 million in the most recent quarter , has reduced the lineup of movies members can see to around a half-dozen on a daily basis.
That’s on the heels of its change to limit customers to only three movies per month for $9.95, effective Aug. 15 — a dramatic drop-off from the movie-per-day that the service previously offered users. MoviePass moved to the three-movies-per-month plan after scrapping a proposed price hike to $14.95 per month.
In a message to subscribers Thursday, MoviePass said that during a “transition period” subscribers will have a selection of up to six films to choose from daily, “including a selection of major studio first-run films and independent releases.” It also said that showtime availability “may be limited depending on the popularity of those films on the app that particular day.”
MoviePass also published a schedule of which movies would be available to subscribers in the next 10 days, listing — somewhat confusingly — seven titles per day.
However, some users reported that MoviePass theaters in their local areas were showing as few as two titles in the app.
Earlier this month, MoviePass said it would limit the availability major releases in the first two weeks of their release. So “Crazy Rich Asians,” which opens this weekend, will not be available for MoviePass subscribers until Sunday, Aug. 19; it is also scheduled to be available to customers on Tuesday, Aug. 21, and Thursday, Aug. 23.
Meanwhile, hot giant-shark pic “The Meg” will be available for MoviePass customers only on Thursday (Aug. 16) and next Monday (Aug. 20) over coming 10 days. Thriller “Mile 22,” starring Mark Wahlberg as a CIA operative, is scheduled to be available via MoviePass on Friday (Aug. 17), and then next Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
On Friday, the MoviePass lineup comprises “Mile 22,” “Christopher Robin,” “Juliet, Naked,” “Skate Kitchen,” “We the Animals,” “Summer of 84” and “The Miseducation of Cameron Post.”
Currently unavailable through MoviePass for the next 10 days: Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” or “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” among other movies currently in release.
In another sign of distress at the company, this week multiple MoviePass users who tried to cancel their service discovered that the company had re-enrolled them in the new monthly plan, according to various reports. In a statement, MoviePass said the problems with the cancellation process were the result of technical bugs, which it said it had fixed Tuesday.
