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Evan Lessler.

The Life and Times of.

The Death of Moviepass.

In Society, Tech, TV / Film Evan

This summer has not been kind to value. We sustained massive damage after our boys from Kirkland, Washington axed the Polish Dog $1.50 combo meal. Now it appears that the death of Moviepass is officially here. 

My greatest fault, my curse, my bane — may be my utter and indisputable clairvoyance. It was a mere 11 months ago that I laid eyes upon the $10/month unlimited movie viewing offer from the co-creator of Netflix, and upon reading the fine print, I was all in. In a world of ‘some exclusions apply’ ‘30% off select items’ and ‘pricing not including SF surcharge, delivery fee, tax and tip,’ this was truly the diamond in the rough as far as value is concerned. And even then, as I pranced to and fro from the theater, my belly heavy with popped corn, I knew it was all too good to be true. This gravy train of tender, succulent movie goodness could not possibly go on forever. And here we are. Yesterday I was informed by Lesli that all movies in her theater area had a $5-6 per movie surge-pricing surcharge, and to my horror as of today I am unable to watch any movies at all at my local Century 20 with Moviepass (e-ticketing may still be possible as of today). I would imagine within the coming weeks the entire operation will be shutting down unless they can acquire some sort of 11th Hour cash infusion.

The writing has been on the wall for some time now. Over the past weeks and months the storm has been gathering, the gales swirling amidst talks of hemorrhaging cash, service outages, limiting of services / addition of surcharges, and empty reassurances from the CEO that all would be A-OK. Well it looks like things at Moviepass are not A-OK, and may never will be again. So how did I make out? Well looking at my film history, I have averaged 4.5 movies / month at a discounted yearly rate of $7.99 / month for the pass. At worst if they cannot recover I will lose the month of August, so an 11-month run. Now I’m no math major but if I divide that by the pythagorean theorem, square-root the 6 and round to the nearest parabola (Kyle check my math on that), that my friend is a pass well-used. I consider it making good on all of the gym membership cash siphoning that has taken place over the years (I now offer gym memberships to my garage gym, sauna included, inquire within for pricing).

Moral of the story? It’s unclear. Can a small-town girl like me have big-town dreams anymore? Dreams of watching movies at my local theater essentially free of charge, hoping that cost is somehow dissipated into the ether consequence-free? Who really knows, only time will tell. But from all of us out here in the lovely Sunset District in San Francisco, CA, we’ll be watching — and waiting. This is Evan Lessler, signing off.

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