I am always wrong.
But I will try to keep this brief. Just a single blog instead of a book's worth of blogs this time out. (Famous last words, I know.)
MoviePass is on summer vacation.
On July 4, 2019 (the anniversary of the day the aliens invaded and destroyed our planet in 1996) MoviePass took their app offline to fix "technical issues," or respond to "user complaints," depending on which lie they tell on which day.
That's right. As every writer on the Internet has pointed out, MoviePass just happened to disappear right before the biggest moviegoing weekend of the year, and it will remain gone for the biggest moviegoing season of the year.
This is the most MoviePass-like move MoviePass has ever made. And MoviePass has a rich history of making MoviePass-like moves. In fact, few companies are as able to behave like MoviePass as MoviePass.
Now the question everyone asks me: "Why are you so stinkin' handsome?"
To which I blush, shuffle my feet around, twirl my hair curls, half-smile, turn my head, and reply, "I don't know..."
The second question everyone asks me: "So is MoviePass done for good?"
To which I reply, "Maybe, with a side order of probably."
By their own admission, according to the email I got from them and the error message you get on your phone when you open the app, they're not putting a timeline on the outage. "Weeks" is all you get.
So my bold prediction is that it will indeed come back once all the major summer blockbusters have come and gone from theaters. And it will have new and improved app errors and outages to block anyone from getting tickets. And MoviePass will beg pardon for these carefully-engineered errors and outages, calling them "temporary inconveniences" from the "app upgrade."
Time will tell if my prophecy proves prophetic!
Really unwise time to disappear, as a multi-week (multi-month?) hiatus will make most rational humans re-acclimate to life without MoviePass. They might reconnect with their families, start reading again, exercise, consider the Big Questions, etc.
And once MoviePass comes back, humans might realize they just don't need it anymore.
Oh, and Regal is finally putting out their theater chain's subscription plan later this month, Regal Unlimited.
AMC already has a well-liked and reliable subscription plan and Alamo will be releasing their theater subscription plan by the end of the year.
But Regal dropping theirs while MoviePass is out of commission is a stake-to-the-heart move. If it proves as reliable and economical as AMC's plan, there is no way anyone will be willing to put up with MoviePass' deranged hijinx ever again.
No one except me, of course.
-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
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