On Brink of Death, MoviePass Thinks It's Figured It Out

What would you rather do: Pay $9.95 a month to see one movie in a theater per day, or pay $9.95 to see three movies a month? It's sort of a trick question, in that option one will soon no longer exist. MoviePass on Monday announced that it's altering its business model from the former to the latter. Those who want to see more than three movies will get a break of up to $5 on their ticket price. CEO Mitch Lowe explained the move by saying all but 15% of its more than 3 million customers see three or less films a month, and now "they'll stop hearing MoviePass is going out of business," he tells the Wall Street Journal.

That's because the change, which kicks in next Wednesday, will cut the burn rate by at least 60%, and all the other policies that got hustled into action late last month amid the company's financial implosion—like increasing the subscription price to $14.95 a month and barring users from seeing new releases during the films' first two weeks—are being killed. If that all feels erratic, Lowe hears you: "We've been whipsawing people back and forth. I think we've got it now." CNNMoney charts the whipsawing of the parent company's stock price, which had been at $39 in October and plunged to $0.08 in July. A subsequent reverse split, "a cosmetic change that boosted the stock 250-fold," got it to $21, only for it to drop to $0.07. It's currently trading at $0.10. (More MoviePass stories.)