MoviePass abruptly reminds users that they're not allowed to see the same movie more than once
In news that will presumably come as a bummer for budget-conscious Marvel fans feeling like two-and-a-half hours of their lives were an insufficient sacrifice to the Infinity War gods, MoviePass has issued a rule clarification to its subscribers today, making it clear that they won’t be able to use the company’s service to see the same movie in theaters more than once.
Although it was apparently included as part of rule restrictions implemented last August, it’s hard not to see the company’s statement today as yet another restriction on the once-limitless movie-going utopia the service initially promised subscribers. The company already restricted its subscription offer from a movie a day to four movies a month—which is still a movie every single weekend, admittedly—but now users won’t be able to use the service to repeatedly immerse themselves in whatever the month’s biggest blockbuster is. (According to MoviePass, the restriction has been put in place to “encourage you to see new movies and enjoy something different!” which, wow, gee, thanks!)
MoviePass is continuing to struggle with the slightly inconvenient fact that its base business model—i.e., buying full-price movie tickets from theaters and then selling them at a huge discount to subscribers—is sort of, um, untenable. A recent audit of the company’s finances confirmed as much, showing that it was basically hemorrhaging money; the hope, apparently, remains that theater chains will find the company’s consumer data so valuable that it’ll start paying them for it (or cutting them a deal on ticket costs), but every little restriction like this seems like one more barrier to people fully embracing the program as a long-haul prospect.