MoviePass CEO says tickets to major films will not be available on app

“The Meg.”
Warner
Bros.

• In an all-hands meeting on Monday, MoviePass CEO Mitch
  Lowe announced that upcoming big releases like “Christopher
  Robin” and “The Meg” will not be available to subscribers, a
  source familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
• The implication was that the practice of not offering
  tickets to major releases would continue for the foreseeable
  future.

MoviePass
subscribers were frustrated to find over the weekend that they
couldn’t order tickets through the app for the weekend’s biggest
release, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” and it looks like going
forward they will continue to be shut out of the major
titles. 

A source familiar with the company told Business Insider that
during an all-hands meeting on Monday, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe
revealed that the app would not make upcoming releases
“Christopher Robin” and “The Meg” — the next two major releases
hitting theaters in the next two weeks — available to its
subscribers, and he implied the practice of not offering tickets
to major films would continue for the foreseeable future.

The company has fallen on incredibly hard times as it tries to
find a financially feasible business model.

Last week, MoviePass’ parent company, Helios and Matheson
Analytics (HMNY), did a
reverse stock split that boosted its stock from trading at
$0.09 on Tuesday to around $14 on Wednesday. But the service
temporarily shut down on Thursday night because it ran out of
money, and according to an SEC filing on Friday, the company had
to
borrow $5 million in cash to get the service back on line.

Things didn’t get any better going into the weekend as complaints
on social media were rampant. The weekend’s blockbuster release,
“Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” was blocked from all subscribers
and the app had more technical issues again on
Sunday. 

Lowe’s announcement to his staff that the big releases for the
next two weeks would not be available on MoviePass came on the
heels of his open letter on Friday, in which the CEO
stated that, “As we continue to evolve the service, certain
films may not always be available in every theater on our
platform.” When reached for comment about this article, a
MoviePass spokesperson referred Business Insider to the CEO’s
previous statement in the Friday letter.

Because MoviePass has to pay full ticket price for all the films
its subscribers go see, eliminating the major releases going
forward means the cash-strapped company will pay millions less
(up to mid-July,
MoviePass paid over 1.15 million tickets for just “Avengers:
Infinity War”).

On Monday, the HMNY stock was trading
back below $1.