MoviePass will relaunch in beta in Dallas, Kansas City, and Chicago — with 5 movies max to see per month
- MoviePass had over 775,000 sign-ups to its waitlist, according to the company.
- The beta will launch in Chicago, Kansas City, and Dallas.
MoviePass has chosen Dallas, Kansas City, and Chicago as the three cities to relaunch its movie-ticket-subscription service in beta form beginning on Labor Day, Insider can exclusively report.
Beginning on September 5, people who signed up to the waitlist in those cities will be sent an email invite that includes an access code that will allow them to create a MoviePass account and choose a plan for the service. More cities will be added in the coming months.
The service will have three tiers of pricing — $10, $20, and $30 a month — with a select number of movies to see per month.
The amount of movies you can see on all the plans will vary based on the showing times (and whether it is an opening weekend), but MoviePass did not detail the exact breakdown of days and times.
- The "Basic" plan, for $10 per month, allows 1 to 3 movies per month (based on peak or off-peak times).
- The "Standard" plan, for $20, allows 2 to 4 movies per month.
- The "Pro" plan, for $30, allows 3 to 5 movies per month.
Currently, all plans do not include IMAX showings or other large format offerings, only standard screenings. However, MoviePass CEO and cofounder Stacy Spikes told Insider plans are in the works to include that option in the future.
Insider was sent a graphic by MoviePass showing the price breakdown:
That included 30,000 sign-ups in the first five minutes of the waitlist launching, which resulted in the site's server crashing for nearly three hours. It had over 460,000 signups in the first 24 hours, according to Spikes.
MoviePass skyrocketed in popularity in 2018 after it lowered its monthly subscription price to $10, amassing 3 million subscribers. But it wasn't sustainable. After burning through hundreds of millions of dollars, MoviePass shut down in September 2019 and its parent company, Helios and Matheson, filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
In his first interview about MoviePass since the company shut down in 2019, former CEO Mitch Lowe told Insider this week that he "didn't have the energy" for what was needed to keep it afloat.
"When I was offered to be CEO of MoviePass, I felt my whole career had led up to this moment," he said. "I'm totally prepared to make this work. I later learned I was not up to the game."