MoviePass Clicks Past 3M Subscribers; Targets 5M By Year’s End

Monthly movie ticket subscription service MoviePass made it officially known today that they’ve exceeded 3 million subscribers; with an eye on hitting 5 million by the end of the year. The $9.95 monthly plan which gives a subscriber one movie ticket daily continues to be in effect.

Those in distribution and exhibition continue to bet against MoviePass’ survival; since CinemaCon they’ve whispered whether the monthly ticket service would make it to the end of summer. Parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc. (HMNY) stock has been in free fall, plunging from a high this year of $9.77 on Jan. 23 to a current $0.38. HMNY boss Ted Farnsworth has shared with the press that the company has $300M in free equity that has been registered with the SEC and told Variety at Cannes, that MoviePass “has 17 months worth of cash without further raises of capital.” MoviePass also disclosed in May that they had $15.5 million in available cash, which is less than it traditionally shells out monthly on subscribers’ movie tickets. HMNY’s current market cap is $31.5M.

In their latest press release MoviePass is claiming that they rep 5% of U.S. box office receipts (it’s not specified whether that’s annual or a weekly average) with its peak weeks nearing 8% of box office. “When actively advertising to (MoviePass) subscribers, box office receipts have seen weeks push to over 30%,” says the release.

In the midst of these stock poor times, MoviePass has been busy: Their Sundance co-acquisition via MoviePass Ventures with The Orchard, American Animals, is in theatrical release, ultimately headed to 600 runs with a running cume near $500K. After taking a stake in the John Travolta Gotti movie, HMNY made a deal to buy the film library and current production slate of Emmett FurlaOasis Films which produced the mob title and launched MoviePass Films.

MoviePass Ventures uses MoviePass to market its films to its subscribers. In return by investing in films, the subsidiary looks to get a share of the downstream revenues from home entertainment (video-on-demand (VOD), subscription video on demand (SVOD), electronic-sell-through (EST), physical- sell-through (DVD, Blu-ray, 4K), etc.