MoviePass “Temporarily” Shuts Down To Update Its App, Leaving Many Shocked The Service Still Exists

The story of MoviePass is far from an inspiring story of an upstart company set to disrupt the film industry (as the company would like you to believe) and more of a farce. However, unlike a comedy that leaves you in stitches and with a smile on your face, the MoviePass Saga leaves you feeling like a bully for laughing at someone that just never stood a chance. It’s funny to watch MoviePass slip on a banana peel, but it’s sad when you realize the company was blind, to begin with.

The latest absurdity in the story of the movie ticket subscription service was revealed over the weekend when MoviePass announced that the company was ceasing operations for an unknown amount of time, while it updated its mobile app.

READ MORE: New Report Shows MoviePass Has Lost Over 90% Of Its Subscribers In Less Than A Year

“There’s never a good time to have to do this,” said Mitch Lowe, MoviePass CEO (via BusinessWire). “But to complete the improved version of our app, one that we believe will provide a much better experience for our subscribers, it has to be done.”

He added, “We have listened and we understand the frustrations of our subscribers. To provide the level of service you deserve and we can be proud of, we need to improve our mobile app. We plan to make this improvement by utilizing an enhanced technology platform, which is in the final stages of completion.”

As with any news about MoviePass, you are left with two options when reading the latest bit of bad news. The first option is to believe what Mitch Lowe says and feel hopeful about the company’s future as it just rejiggers some things on the app. Or, the second option (which is almost always correct), you see this as another sign that the business is in trouble and looking at ways of cutting costs as it attempts to figure out a way to continue.

READ MORE: MoviePass Comes Full Circle With Its New “Uncapped” Movie Plans After A Terrible Start To 2019

You see, it’s really odd to time this app shutdown during the month of July, right as “Spider-Man: Far From Home” was being released and just weeks before “The Lion King.” It’s almost as if MoviePass doesn’t want you to use the service during the busiest season of the year. Weird, huh? Of course, you can surely believe what Lowe says and that this timing is just a terrible coincidence that has little to do with the fact that the company would likely lose millions of dollars over the summer.

Funny enough, this announcement is almost exactly a year to the day that MoviePass experienced its first major outage, timed with “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” where the company literally ran out of money and couldn’t pay its bills. And in the months since then, the subscription service changed the plans offered to customers a half dozen or so times before “relaunching” earlier this year with a modified version of its original offering.

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Of course, the damage was already done by that point and you are likely hard-pressed to find anyone that still pays money to this ridiculous company. It also doesn’t help that similar offerings from AMC, Alamo Drafthouse, and soon, Regal, are thriving and making the MoviePass model obsolete.

So, if you’re a MoviePass subscriber and you’re worried that this outage might be a sign that the company is gone forever, then you are likely right. But then again, the company has survived in the face of clear doom before, so we can’t say for sure that this is the time that MoviePass will die.

Again, you almost want to laugh, but at this point, it’s just a sad state of affairs and it’s just not funny anymore.