The past few days have been extremely rough for Moviepass. On Thursday night, the subscription-based movie ticketing service experienced a service outage due to the fact it was not able to pay for movie tickets. In other words, the company had simply run out of money. The company took out a $5 million loan and was “up and running with stability at 100%” by Friday afternoon.
Unfortunately, while Moviepass seems to be operational again, there are still some lingering effects being felt by its subscribers. Many customers planning on watching Mission: Impossible-Fallout this weekend found out that the latest entry in the blockbuster franchise has been blocked from purchase through Moviepass during its opening weekend.
We are still experiencing technical issues with our card-based check-in process and we are diligently working to resolve the issue. In the interim e-ticketing is working. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience while we resolve this issue.
— MoviePass (@MoviePass) July 27, 2018
Even more worrisome for customers of the embattled ticketing service are the statements from the company’s CEO Mitch Lowe, which seemed to hint that this may become more common in the future. Citing “in-home streaming options that often don’t carry the latest shows or movies that may be available on other services,” Lowe stated that certain movies may not always be available. Essentially, customers may have to wait longer if they want to see the newest and most in demand films.
Moviepass is no stranger to financial difficulties. The decision to lower its price last summer caused millions of people to subscribe, but it also led to significant losses for the company. Basically, the price subscribers were paying Moviepass were not covering the costs being paid to movie theaters. Things became even scarier this summer when AMC began their own subscription based service. Though it is more expensive ($19.95 a month compared to $9.95), it’s still a great value.
Sadly for loyal customers and defenders of Moviepass, the long term outlook does not bode well.
Despite being at the center of the problems, Mission: Impossible-Fallout has been completely unaffected. The movie has been earning rave reviews and will easily top the box office this weekend.
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