MoviePass is back in the news, this time for making a positive change.  The venerable movie subscription company today announced that the all-you-can-eat $9.95 a month plan is back.

MoviePass has been making changes dynamically over the last few months.  In August of 2017, the company cut the $50 a month plan to $9.95.  They then offered considerable discounts if you prepaid for a year, followed up by the most recent change to 4 movies per month with a trial to iHeart Radio.  The iHeart deal was seen as the death of unlimited movies.  Mitch Lowe, the CEO of MoviePass, even cast doubt last month on the service’s return to unlimited. But, here it is, back again.

MoviePass Unlimited is Back

The change is a welcome one for people who had been holding off to see if the unlimited plan returns.  The company still offers the iHeart Radio plan in addition to the unlimited plan but the unlimited plan is sure to dwarf the iHeart Radio plan in terms of popularity.  The iHeart Radio plan now only gives you three movies a month for $7.95. Parent company, Helios and Matheson, have said that the goal this year is to have 5 million subscribers by year end.  This is certainly one way to bring that number up.

But while the company going back to unlimited is a welcome change, the company’s decisions have been more than a little controversial.  Recently, MoviePass said it was planning to restrict people from seeing the same movie twice, claiming that rampant misuse is the problem.  Further, the company has been playing games with subscribers, once cutting off 10 AMC movie theaters from its app.  The company has even had to fend off reports of people being banned from using the service.

The Future is Uncertain

 

Still, the company is making an impact on consumers.  Theaters are reporting higher revenues while studios are supposedly using the service to advertise upcoming pictures; Pictures like the upcoming Overboard staring Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris.  Meanwhile concern still abounds that the company is overtaxed and is unsustainable.  You can see my opinions on this here.  In any case, something positive coming out of the MoviePass office is a welcome one and believe me, this is welcome.  We will just have to see what’s next in this never-ending soap opera.

 

 

 

*Full disclosure: Seeq.TV owner is a shareholder of Helios and Matheson, the parent company of MoviePass.