MoviePass CEO letter to customers is apologetic, a bit vague

There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead

MoviePass continues to shamble along like Frankenstein’s monster, with mad scientist and MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe releasing a statement to all customers of the faltering company. A recent outage put the company’s financial predicament in the spotlight, with moviegoers unable to watch big films like Mission: Impossible—Fallout with their service. It looks like this policy, plus a price increase, will be permanent.

The release came in an email to all MoviePass subscribers. Let’s have a look-see, shall we?

Dear MoviePass Members,

First and foremost, I want to personally apologize to each of you for the inconsistencies and unreliability of our service over the past few days. Additionally, I regret our lack of proactive communication with you during this time; we are working hard to improve the communications to our community moving forward.

Aw, Mitch! You do care! I’m sure you’ll make it up to us.

Over the last several days, we’ve begun making changes to our service that will help us continue to offer our members a high-value, low-cost, in-theater movie experience. 

We believe that the company we have built — the fastest growing subscription company in history with more than 3 million members — has revolutionized the movie industry in the U.S. The first half of 2018 saw the total box office grow by almost 10 percent compared to last year, and we know MoviePass is responsible for a significant portion of that unprecedented growth.

Yes, people do tend to love taking advantage of ridiculous deals from rich executives to watch movies on the cheap.

In order to continue growing our service and maintaining a high level of financial discipline, we need to make some modifications:

The word “maintaining” is implying that they had any “high level of financial discipline” in the first place, but go on.

• We must reduce availability for big new-release titles, such as Mission: Impossible – Fallout and other popular new releases, at least for a while as we adjust the business model. We are working on making this more clear in the app so you know which titles are available.
• Showtimes that are offered through our service will vary from day to day, and every showtime may not be available. We encourage you to check the MoviePass app for showtimes before you leave for the theater.
• While our customer service team has made great strides of late, we still have a long way to go to provide the most responsive customer service experience for you. In the meantime, access to immediate support may become limited. However, we are working to prioritize the requests of members who are at the theater and introduce more self-help tools, as well as focus our resources on fixing glitches and bugs in the app.

“At least for a while,” “may not be available” and “we are working” are not inspiring phrases in the slightest. It was the lack of transparency and communication that led to this most recent fiasco, so the fact that a more specific policy isn’t in place by now gives the impression that MoviePass themselves aren’t sure what to do here. Leaving this in a case-by-case basis will lead to more frustration, just like last Thursday night.

Finally, we want to be as transparent as we can with these changes and any future changes. We are committed to giving you the best experience. We count on your support and loyalty while we implement these necessary steps for the company you’ve grown to love.

It would have been nice and “transparent” to mention the price increase from $9.99 a month to $14.95 a month (via Deadline), but to be fair, the initial price lowering from around $50 a month was already absurd in the first place.

Thank you for your understanding and patience, and we’ll be in touch with more updates as we have them.

No, thank you, Mitch.

This has been your semi-regular MoviePass Deathwatch.

MoviePass Officially Responds To Monday Meltdown & Future Tentpole Blackout Plan [Deadline]