WME head Ari Emanuel almost negotiated to buy MoviePass in 2018, says former CEO Mitch Lowe

• Mitch Lowe writes in his upcoming book "Watch and Learn" that powerhouse agency WME wanted to buy MoviePass.
• Lowe writes that it was the CEO of MoviePass' parent company, Ted Farnsworth of Helios and Matheson, who negotiated too hard.

We might be looking at MoviePass a very different way today if a deal being negotiated back in 2018 had been finalized.

In Mitch Lowe's book "Watch and Learn: How I Turned Hollywood Upside Down with Netflix, Redbox, and MoviePass" (available September 6), the former CEO of MoviePass revealed that at the height of the movie-ticket-subscription company's popularity, the major Hollywood executive Ari Emanuel wanted his company WME to be a majority owner in the startup.

"Ari and I started meeting on a fairly regular basis and strategized a dozen times or more on the phone about an integration into his multi-billion dollar agency group," Lowe writes in "Watch and Learn." "He even had me speak to his entire organization about the potential of incorporating MoviePass into the William Morris Endeavor organization."

Lowe said what led to Emanuel walking away from the deal was that the CEO of MoviePass' parent company, Ted Farnsworth of Helios and Matheson, negotiated too hard.

"I was ready to take the offer, but Ted wanted several hundred million up front in cash, which Ari was unwilling to do," Lowe writes in his book. "Eventually, after several months of negotiating, the deal fell through." (Farnsworth did not respond to a request for comment.)

A year later, MoviePass shut down and in 2020 Helios and Matheson filed for bankruptcy.

Speaking to Insider recently, Lowe said he felt the WME deal would have kept MoviePass' doors open.

"I don't know how the pandemic would have affected it, but definitely the clout of the deal would have made it work," he said. "I didn't mention in the book the directors and other people in the movie business who realized that MoviePass could help their revenue. WME representing practically half of the major stars and directors, it would have made so much sense. I was all for it. I didn't care what price. It would have overcome all the resistance we were getting from people in the industry like AMC. It would have been an amazing future."

"I remember Ari telling me not to worry about anything, we're going to get 'schmuck money,' meaning that if everything works out the shareholders of MoviePass will make out down the line," Lowe continued. "But sometimes those deals are hard to structure. The buyer is often in the driver's seat and sets milestones that maybe are hard to accomplish. But I thought this was the thing that was going to help us overcome all the resistance."

Emanuel did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Late last year, MoviePass cofounder Stacy Spikes bought back the company. Spikes is relaunching the service in beta form beginning on Labor Day, making it available in Dallas, Kansas City, and Chicago with plans to expand the service to more cities in the coming months.