Less than 30 days after hitting 1 million subscribers, Helios and Matheson Analytics’ MoviePass has now swelled to 1.5M monthly customers.
“MoviePass is attracting people back to the movie theaters by lowering their cost, which we believe is transformational for the industry,” said Ted Farnsworth, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HMNY in a statement. “We believe the data MoviePass collects from these million and a half movie-goers will become an important asset to our partners and the future of the movie industry,” Mr. Farnsworth continued about the service which provides subscribers with unlimited movie tickets for $9.95/a month.
“Based on the dramatic increase in the number of MoviePass subscribers over such a short period of time, we believe MoviePass will continue to grow its subscriber base significantly,” added Mitch Lowe, Chief Executive Officer of MoviePass. “We’re giving people a reason to go back to the movie theaters and they’re going in droves. With awards season here, we hope we can make Hollywood and exhibitors very happy by filling seats with eager audiences.”
In a $1 billion holiday movie period where moviegoers are seeing anywhere from two to four titles in a two week period, Lowe informed Deadline in November that “We’re funded properly to pay for” the holiday box office period; that the run on the B.O. would not drain the company.
MoviePass has been met with plenty of skepticism by those in the industry, chiefly how the model of charging a monthly price that’s lower than most metropolitan average movie ticket prices can stay afloat (while the consumer pays only $9.95/a month, MoviePass pays full price for each ticket to the exhibitor). Largely big exhibitors like AMC are ticked off that an outside player is determining the new cost of a movie ticket in consumers’ heads. Studios are largely agnostic to MoviePass: The service isn’t taking any money out of their hands, and if they can drive more business to the cinema, then more power to them.
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