https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128663/moviepass-three-tier-subscription-january-2019-select-all-access-red-carpet
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/moviepass-new-pricing-plans-mitch-lowe-1203081461/
https://theweek.com/speedreads/811184/moviepass-introducing-new-subscription-plans-attempt-win-back-subscribers
https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/06/moviepass-select-red-carpet-all-access-price/
http://www.darkhorizons.com/moviepass-pricing-now-determined-by-district/
https://www.thewrap.com/moviepass-is-switching-to-a-regional-tiered-pricing-model/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/business/media/moviepass-subscription-plan.html
https://www.wired.com/story/moviepass-new-plan/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/12/06/moviepass-announces-pricier-new-plans-sticks-three-movies-month/2213898002/
My favorite line was the MoviePass dude's take on theater's worries about sharing concession costs: "They were worried we were literally going to steal their butter."
To summarize: they're offering three plans now and none of them are the unlimited one we all want (Sinemia is the only company currently offering an unlimited plan), just three per month with different specifics.
-One plan is the sucky one they currently offer: $9.95 for scattershot service
-One is $14.95 but without the schedule wankery
-One is $19.95 and includes one IMAX/3D visit per month
And, apparently, your price may vary by region. Which is how MoviePass used to run things before the Great Price Drop of 2017. New York City folks gonna pay more than rural folks.
Their new options are closer to what Sinemia offers. Though the no-restriction $14.95 plan for three monthly movies whenever/wherever you want? Sinemia offers that for $8.99 and that's the plan I happened to sign up for last week.
(Fine print on Sinemia: there's a $1.80 fee per ticket if you get them through the app, making the monthly price $14.39, only slightly cheaper than MoviePass. BUT you can also get a physical card for $14.99 if you want to avoid fees and if you spread that over a year, that's $1.25 a month. That's what I did, so I'm paying $10.24 per month to Sinemia for the exact same service MoviePass is now offering for $14.95.)
These options are what MoviePass should have been offering since August rather than grinding their user base down to nothing and making embittered PTSD veterans out of the customers that stuck it out.
Oh, and you have to pay a year in advance and payment is direct from your bank account. If you trust MoviePass with that info. And you trust them not to keep charging you after you cancel (yuk yuk).
Kinda makes this nuanced review that I was gonna post here kinda obsolete. But then again, unpredictability and instant obsolescence of everything you thought you knew about yourself or reality seems to be the MoviePass brand.
As revealed last week, I am no longer a MoviePass member, so my window into the service is my wife's account and honestly...We're probably gonna stick with the scattershot $9.95 monthly plan since we're able to get to the box office to get a ticket over lunch before they shut the app down for the day. Those notorious two weeks of Indivisible where the service was unusable in our city? Hasn't happened since. We can reliably get a shot or two at a ticket each week and that's enough.
So...thanks for the new options but no thanks for the new options, MoviePass!
Bonus screwiness: they're currently offering these plans for a year in advance at slight discounts to new members or people with lapsed subscriptions.
"Hey, I have a lapsed subscription! Maybe I should re-sign up and have my wife cancel her account!" I thinks to myself.
I checked the fine print and these annual plan discounts are only available to people whose accounts lapsed before a certain date: "Codes valid only for new subscribers or subscribers with a canceled or lapsed account prior to December 1, 2018." My account lapsed on December 2, 2018. MISSED IT BY ONE DAY. So I can't get this discount. JERKS!!!
Also: MoviePass, if you try to raise our current $9.95 price to $13 or $15 for the scattershot service at the lowest level you offer, my wife is switching to Sinemia faster than you can say, "THERE ARE NO MORE SCREENINGS AT THIS THEATER TODAY."
Will discuss Sinemia next week, unless MoviePass blows up the Internet again before then...
*
-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
I wrote the book on MoviePass TWICE, once from a positive perspective, and once from a more realistic perspective. I also wrote a horror book about a sort-of evil MoviePass.
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