MoviePass is collapsing, and investors are paying the price.
A few days after the movie-ticket subscription service reportedly borrowed $5 million to keep the lights on, its parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics, saw its stock price dip below $1 a share on Monday, closing at 80 cents. It’s doing a bit better this morning so far, trading at $1.12 after the markets opened.
For context, this is a company that was trading at $25 a share just one week ago.
As was widely reported on Friday, MoviePass—which lets subscribers purchase movie tickets for a flat fee every month—suffered outages last week as the company ran out of money. To add insult to injury, yesterday it was reported that some big-budget blockbusters may no longer be available for MoviePass users.
Despite all these issues, the idea behind MoviePass does rest on a compelling idea—what if there were a better way to fill all those empty seats at the multiplex? Now all it needs is a Hollywood ending.