HBO doc ‘MoviePass, MovieCrash’ tells the inside story of moviegoers’ favorite bad idea [Watch]

Liam Mathews
·2 min read

The MoviePass moment was an extraordinary one. Between 2017 and 2018, the company offered a service that granted subscribers admission to one theatrical movie per day for $9.95 per month. At the time, it felt too good to be true, because the business model seemed like it made no sense. And it didn’t – the service flamed out in spectacular fashion by 2019 after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars. 

The story of MoviePass’ dramatic rise and fall is the subject of “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” a new documentary that premieres on HBO and Max on May 29. 

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HBO released a trailer for the documentary today, which promises a “Fyre Fraud”-style look at what went wrong. It’s a story of hubris, excess, and betrayal, and as a moviegoer, it will make you nostalgic for a moment in the relatively recent past that feels so long gone but was so fun while it was happening. 

Here’s HBO’s official description: “Featuring exclusive interviews from the company’s co-founders, former CEO Mitch Lowe, former employees, investors, subscribers, industry analysts, and the journalists at Business Insider who originally reported on the rise and fall of the company, ‘MoviePass, MovieCrash’ uncovers the outrageous story behind the bold innovators who tried to disrupt the cinema-going paradigm and the key players who, in peddling a false narrative and seeking to fly too high, created a wild ride that ended with hundreds of millions of dollars in lost value and the early demise of the now infamous company.”

The documentary is directed by Muta’Ali (HBO’s “Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn”) and produced by Mark Wahlberg’s company Unrealistic Ideas, which is a nice bit of synergy with MoviePass, which was an extremely unrealistic idea. Unrealistic Ideas previously produced HBO’s stranger-than-fiction true crime docuseries “McMillions.”

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