It may not have been the final curtain call for MoviePass on Monday, but listings for many Bay Area theaters in its subscription-based movie-going app went dark for hours Monday afternoon before they were restored as the company and its owner faced deep financial woes.
Subscribers took to social media on Monday afternoon to complain that MoviePass showed no movie listings in its local theaters in and around the Bay Area.
The MoviePass mobile app showed no listings Monday afternoon for AMC Mercado 20, CineArts at Santana Row in San Jose and AMC Eastridge 15 in East San Jose — despite all three theaters operating and screening multiple movies on Monday, according to their websites.
By nearly 6 p.m., the listings had returned to the MoviePass app for those and other Bay Area theaters.
MoviePass did show listings Monday afternoon, however, for four Landmark movie theaters in the South Bay. Landmark Theaters and MoviePass signed a deal in March, where MoviePass would be integrated into Landmark Theaters’ ticketing system, according to Variety.
Employees at Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto and Guild Theatre in Menlo Park told this news organization people continued using the MoviePass app to obtain tickets for movies Monday.
Other Landmark theaters across the country also showed movie listings on the MoviePass app Monday, according to Deadline.
MoviePass did not immediately respond to a request for comment from this news organization.
MoviePass’ temporarily empty listings for other theater chains extended beyond the Bay Area and into New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, according to multiple media outlets.
MoviePass’ three million-plus subscribers have paid a fixed amount per month — currently the price is $9.95 — in exchange for tickets to watch one movie a day in theaters. The business model disrupted the movie theater industry, with Bay Area-based subscribers and independent movie theaters lauding the service for transforming the movie-going experience into a more accessible one and increasing attendance.
Despite the support, MoviePass’ financial prospects grew dire in the past few days. Last Thursday, MoviePass’ parent company Helios and Matheson borrowed $6.2 million from Hudson Bay Capital Management in order to restore its services and continue to “pay the company’s merchant and fulfillment processors,” according to its SEC filing.
MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe, in a note to subscribers on Friday, said that “temporary outage” was a back-end issue, which was taken care of.
“MoviePass’ mission is to make moviegoing accessible to everyone and to enhance the power of discovery – but we need your support as we refine our model for the long-haul,” wrote Lowe.
Lowe, in a meeting on Monday, said that newly released movies like “Mission Impossible: Fallout” and upcoming blockbusters like “Christopher Robin” and “The Meg” will not be available on MoviePass, according to Business Insider.
Helios and Matheson’s share price has continued to plummet. Its stock closed Monday at 80 cents — a 60 percent decline from Friday’s closing price.
Last Wednesday, Helios and Matheson underwent a reverse stock split where 250 shares were exchanged for a single share to inflate the stock price per share to around $20 rather than 8 and a half cents — where the stock price sat before the reverse split took effect. But the plan didn’t mollify investors, and the stock has shed most of its value since then.
