MoviePass
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
MoviePass was a US movie-ticketing subscription service founded in 2011. After years as a modest subscription plan, its new parent Helios and Matheson Analytics launched a $10-per-month 'one movie a day' offer in 2017 — and millions latched on, growing from 20,000 subscribers to three million by June 2018. But there was no way to make it work: MoviePass paid theaters full price for tickets its customers scooped up for pennies, hemorrhaging cash — burning $21.7 million per month — while the promised data-advertising business never materialized. The service shut down in September 2019, and Helios and Matheson filed for bankruptcy on January 29, 2020.
02 / MoviePass FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
MoviePass's failure was arithmetic. A customer in Los Angeles watching four movies a month at $14 a ticket cost MoviePass $56 against $9.95 collected — a loss of about $46 per subscriber per month, or $138 million a month at three million subscribers. Helios and Matheson bet the data collected would be sold to studios, theaters and advertisers, but the data was not valuable enough and ad deals never closed fast enough. As losses mounted, the company throttled the app, blocked showtimes, resurrected terminated accounts without consent and cycled through plan changes, collapsing trust with subscribers and theaters alike; it also faced a New York AG securities-fraud probe and shareholder lawsuits.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
MoviePass is founded as a movie-ticketing subscription service.
- Unlimited plan
Under new parent Helios and Matheson Analytics, MoviePass launches a $10-per-month 'one movie a day' plan; subscribers explode from 20,000 to millions.
- Cash hemorrhage
MoviePass burns through $21.7 million per month; parent Helios and Matheson posts a $126.6 million operating loss for Q2 2018 and faces shareholder lawsuits and a New York AG probe.
- Shutdown
MoviePass shuts down its ticketing service in September 2019.
- Bankruptcy
Parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics files for bankruptcy on January 29, 2020.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
MoviePass's parent, Helios and Matheson Analytics, reported an operating loss of $126.6 million (overall net loss of $84 million) for the quarter ended June 30, 2018. The company burned $219.2 million within the six months ended June 30, 2018, and was down to $15.5 million in cash and $53.5 million in total current assets. In the bankruptcy filing, MoviePass faced $1.2 million in customer claims (roughly $100 each).