Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
MoviePass.
- 2019 was the year the movie-ticket subscription service MoviePass closed its doors.
- Business Insider covered the inside stories of the company's rise and fall.
- Here's a curated selection of our coverage.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
It's not often that outside-the-box thinking happens in the movie-theater business, which has - broadly speaking - been doing the same thing for decades. And that's what made MoviePass so special.
The idea of taking a monthly subscription plan and plugging it into the theatrical experience isn't new. It's been going on for years overseas, particularly in Europe. But making the plan so attractive that it caught fire in the US and became impossible for the theater giants to ignore - that was the magic MoviePass had. And it was also its curse.
After the company lowered its subscription price to $10 a month to see a movie per day in 2017, the industry watched to see if MoviePass could sustain itself financially. But when subscriber numbers shot into the millions, and the company was still paying theaters full price for most tickets ordered, the finances deteriorated and the startup's dream began to die.
The company blew through hundreds of millions of dollars and then unraveled from the inside when the staff revolted and the parent company's stock was delisted from the Nasdaq. The service eventually shut down in September.
It was a wild ride.
Read the definitive story on the company's rise and fall on Business Insider Prime
Plus these other ones that fill in other aspects of the saga:
- MoviePass cofounder Stacy Spikes' first interview after being fired from the company
- A MoviePass consultant accused of inappropriate behavior quietly returns to the company