I’m only going to watch the MoviePass documentary for one reason

Max has released a trailer for his documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash, coming to the streaming service on May 29. And honestly, it looks awful. The trailer makes the film look like the worst kind of buzzy, hyperbolic TV news report, full of over-the-top voiceover, staccato sound bites and sensational quotes, all trying to inject punchy, bouncy energy into a story that doesn’t add up. need swell. The actual document may not look anything like this; trailers are notoriously unreliable when it comes to reflecting what a movie is actually like. But either way, I don’t care. I’m all in, for one reason: I just want to see the faces of the people behind the story that I’ve been following with absolute non-stop disbelief for two full years of “Oh God, what now?” schadenfreude.

MoviePass existed for six years as a largely under-the-radar, somewhat expensive movie ticket subscription service before analytics company Helios and Matheson took over. In 2017, the revamped company introduced an unbeatable subscription service: Members could get unlimited movie tickets for about $10 a month. “How could this business model ever work?” industry watchers asked at the time. The answer: That wasn’t possible. Helios and Matheson lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the project while visibly, awkwardly, and very publicly trying to redefine the company’s intentions every few weeks.

While all this was happening, I was the film editor at The Verge, and we were covering that every new beat in the story it happened because our readers wanted to know what new nonsense MoviePass was up to. What made the story so fascinating and compelling was how absolutely clear it was that Helios and Matheson knew nothing about the industry they were trying to disrupt, and how quickly the narrative kept changing about what MoviePass was supposed to do.

The company clearly thought its subscriber base would give it power over the industry, and was willing to take huge losses while it tried to figure out what to do with that power. It tried to do that effectively for one week blackmail theater chains to give discounts, otherwise MoviePass risks diverting its subscribers to different chains. In the same way, it tried that too extorting studios to pay them for advertisingor risk the service blocking subscribers from buying tickets to those studios’ latest films.

At one point the company bragged about it the tracking data it collected about its subscribers with the intention of selling that data to investors; after a counter reaction, it abruptly came back with that idea. Then suddenly MoviePass announced it would become a film distributor. Meanwhile, it changed its prices and the services it offered too many times to count, often without notice to subscribers, who suddenly found themselves opting for new plans. even if they had already left the service. At the lowest point, the company sent a cute email claiming this was the case hired a dog as its new marketing director, and apologizing for the “collar” time subscribers spent with the service. The company shareholders have been sued. The subscribers did too.

I don’t have to look MoviePass, MovieCrash for a summary of it all – I’ve been through it, and not so long ago. What I want is to see the people behind the debacle. Throughout the two-year barrage of frantic, non-stop news about MoviePass’ endless abrupt adjustments, CEO Mitch Lowe was the public face of each new debacle. But there were clearly many more people fighting for control behind the scenes, desperately trying to find the solution that would turn the ship around. All I want from a MoviePass documentary is to know what it was like for everyone who wasn’t Lowe, who wasn’t in front of the cameras trying to justify how Helios and Matheson were draining money. investigated for fraudAnd watch the stock plummet 99 percent. I want to finally put faces to this wild, rampant disaster.

Here’s the official synopsis of the film, from Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO Original:

The HBO Original Documentary MOVIEPASS, MOVIECRASH, directed by award-winning filmmaker Muta’Ali (HBO’s “Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn”), debuts WEDNESDAY, MAY 29 at 9:00 PM ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream at Max. In eight years, MoviePass went from the fastest growing subscription service since Spotify to total bankruptcy, losing more than $150 million in 2017 alone. MOVIEPASS, MOVIECRASH chronicles the company’s beginnings as an innovative movie ticket model beloved by moviegoers, and explores the visionary mission of its entrepreneurial co-founders, the impressive early successes, and the precipitous demise caused by corporate mismanagement and greed.