MoviePass: The Ongoing Saga (Part 15 of ?)

I wrote my first MoviePass book after I'd been happily using it for nine months. I enthused about it to friends, family, and acquaintances. And I mentioned it here and there on this blog.

But I was strangely subdued about it in my literary work. And that's basically because it felt so fragile. It was a miracle. And I didn't want to interfere with the miracle.

MoviePass is not a miracle anymore. Neither is Sinemia. They're companies offering pretty good deals on movie tickets (if you know how to use them right, which I will try to help you with) and their antics are fun to keep up with and tell you about on a weekly basis.

So on this fine holiday week, let's take a break from the cinemadness of these companies and take a deeper dive on the history of MoviePass.

I am a reference librarian by trade, so I decided to take a reference approach to the history of MoviePass. I did a brief history of the company in my second MoviePass book. But let's take a closer look at some moments in time here...

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Did you know MoviePass existed in 2005?

"Comcast's new MoviePass service started with a few dozen titles and will hit 75 movies in March and 200 titles by year end...Roberts said 30% of VOD users watch at least one movie per month on MoviePass."

Stump, Matt. "VOD's Mystery Numbers." Multichannel News, vol. 26, no. 7, 2005, p. 24.

That's right. It was a video-on-demand service. Spelled the same way, with a capitalized "P" in the middle.

And what the heck, since you're here, you probably want to hear the other stuff people said about MoviePass around that time. Here you go! (Skip these if your interest is not piqued.)
 

"Comcast has declined to discuss its long-range plans for MoviePass...The goal of Comcast is to keep all the VOD theatricals on MoviePass free and thus make it such a powerful attraction to digital customers that they won't be tempted by the siren calls of satellite TV or the phone companies. Because of technological limitations, such satellite distributors as DirecTV and EchoStar can't create VOD platforms like MoviePass...However, Warner Bros. and Paramount might hesitate to sell movies to Comcast for fear that subscribers would become so enamored of MoviePass they'd cancel their subscriptions to HBO (a sister company of Warner Bros.) and Showtime (a Paramount sibling)...a robust MoviePass could deliver a potent weapon to Comcast's arsenal when it negotiates contract renewals...Comcast is going to have spend a lot of money on marketing "to get it across to the consumer that MoviePass is up and running and offering free movies."

Dempsey, John. "Cable Keeps Off Competish." Variety, vol. 398, no. 1, 2005, p. 17.

"While not a complete dud, Comcast has work to do with the studios before MoviePass becomes anything of value...The selection of free pics was beyond disappointing...And most of the movies are much older-- and by that, I don't mean "classic." I mean "Wholly Moses" and "976-EVIL.""

Adalian, Josef. "On Demand Lineup Is a Little Uneven." Variety, vol. 398, no. 1, 2005, p. 17.

Comcast has hired experts to negotiate with the major studios to buy as many as 50 library titles a year, at a total cost of $10 million, for use on an exclusive free-on-demand service called MoviePass.

Dempsey, John. "Comcast Crashes the Party." Variety, vol. 400, no. 8, 2005, pp. 1 - 2.

"Capitalizing on its stake in the MGM library, [Comcast] has launched the Moviepass service, which offers many older movies for free to subscribers."
Zeitchik, Steven. "USA Vid Suit Targets Cablers' VOD Plans." Daily Variety, vol. 291, no. 54, 2006, p. 52.

"Since movies are one of video-on-demand's favorite attractions, Comcast bought a 20% stake in MGM last year to get its hands on the studio's theatrical library of more than 4,000 titles, tapping in to a steady flow of free movies on a service called MoviePass."

Dempsey, John. "Comcast Opens Up Supply for On-Demand." Variety, vol. 404, no. 5, 2006, p. 22.

Oh, and in 2006, MoviePass had its first legal trouble, foreshadowing all the legal trouble the next incarnation of MoviePass would face a decade later!

"Eleven companies are in hot water with the FTC for allegedly offering downloads of movies, music, sports and other entertainment, then inundating users with pop-ups that disappear only after pressuring users to make payments of at least $19.95. Complaints were filed in mid-August in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the companies and two executives—allegedly associated with the Web sites MovieLand, MoviePass.tv, Popcorn and MediaCaster.net—that accuse the defendants of having violated federal laws that prohibit unfair and deceptive practices since the fall of 2005."

Vence, Deborah L.. "Law, Regulation & Economy." Marketing News, vol. 40, no. 15, 2006, p. 4.

And that's that for the previous incarnation of MoviePass. That 2006 lawsuit seems to have shut it down, toot suite. I don't know what "toot suite" means. Hope I used it correctly.

I wonder if the trademark on MoviePass expired, or if they had to buy it from Comcast when they started the new company in 2011.

I have a few choice excerpts from articles during that time, mostly AMC taking pot shots against the company. Let's save that for another holiday week!

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I also did a research deep-dive on Sinemia, curious about their origins. Will share the fun trivia I learned about them another day. (Most interesting fact: seems like they were named after a fetal disease.)

Oh, and my Sinemia card arrived Christmas Eve. Am far too tired and overwhelmed with holiday "cheer" to get out and try it. But believe you me, you'll be the first to know once I do...

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-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.

My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony McFakename books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram but I only really post regularly on Instagram.