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- MoviePass is temporarily halting its services for "several weeks" to resolve "technical problems."
- The troubled movie-ticket subscription service is not accepting new subscribers during this period.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Troubled movie-ticket subscription service MoviePass said on Thursday that it was temporarily suspending its services to resolve "technical problems," which could take several weeks.
"Due to maintenance related issues, MoviePass services have been put on a temporary hold," the service tweeted in response to customers. "Once we have resolved these technical problems, the service will be live again. We estimate this process will take several weeks. We sincerely appreciate your patience."
A notice on the MoviePass website says that it's not accepting new subscribers during this time.
"For the past several months, MoviePass has been working hard to improve our groundbreaking subscription service to ensure it meets the vision that we have for it," it says. "We are temporarily not accepting new subscribers as we work on these improvements."
"There's never a good time to have to do this," MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "But to complete the improved version of our app, one that we believe will provide a much better experience for our subscribers, it has to be done."
MoviePass soared in popularity after lowering its monthly price in 2017, allowing subscribers to see one movie a day for $9.95 a month. But it struggled to sustain itself financially, and subscribers became frustrated with the service's regular technical issues and rule changes. Business Insider reported in April that MoviePass had dropped from more than 3 million subscribers to about 225,000.
MoviePass launched a new unlimited plan in March for $14.95 a month, but limited the movie choices of subscribers with "excessive individual usage."
As MoviePass has struggled, competitors have risen. AMC Theatres' Stubs A-List program passed 800,000 members in May, Alamo Drafthouse is launching Alamo Season Pass later this year, and Regal Cinemas is reportedly launching its own subscription service with an unlimited plan later this month.