MoviePass still refuses to die

Well, MoviePass is apparently going to come back again, probably in some new and somehow even worse form. That’s according to Business Insider, which says one of MoviePass’ original co-founders—Stacy Spikes—has reacquired the decaying corpse of the company and intends to relaunch it “soon.”

Spikes adds that, “if done properly,” a movie subscription service like this could “play an instrumental role in lifting moviegoing attendance to new heights.” For those who don’t recall, MoviePass allowed subscribers to pay a flat fee for, essentially, unlimited movie tickets. As that incredible deal quickly bled the company of all of its money, the “unlimited movie tickets” thing gradually became a severely limited number of movie tickets, with the company even going to surprising lengths to stop people from using its service.

Insider doesn’t know how much Spikes paid to get MoviePass, but it was apparently “lower than the $250,000 minimum” that was set by a trustee last year. Also, Spikes’ purchase does not include any customer data or email addresses, but the good news there is that all of that was leaked online years ago anyway.

Now, MoviePass was a great service when it was good, and we’re certainly happy to see the MoviePass mountain chalet again, but wouldn’t we all be better off if they’d just let this thing die? We’ve been stuck on the B or the second D in DABDA for so many years, and it would be lovely if we could get to “acceptance” and just move on someday.

There are other services that do the same basic thing MoviePass was doing, and movie theaters have lost their appeal to some people now that COVID-19 is showing no sign of going away (thanks in part to the world’s most infuriating movie stars and professional athletes). Does anyone need or want MoviePass to come back? It would probably be better served as an ironic merchandise company for film nerds at this point. Who wouldn’t want to show up for an AMC A-List subscription screening while wearing a MoviePass T-shirt?