The company that owns MoviePass lost a ton of money last quarter. Unsurprising, I realize, but in context, it’s actually a bit of a mind boggling. The more austerely named Helios and Matheson Analytics had one heck of a tough quarter, posting a $126.6 million operating loss, as compared to a loss of $2.7 million a year prior.
If one chose to simply look at adoption rates, as MoviePass is no doubt hoping from its shareholders, things have been sunshine and lollipops over that same time period, with the movie subscription service growing to three million users. That, of course, ignores the on-going fiscal tire fire that has been the company last several months.
It’s probably not worth listing all of that right now, but suffice it say, the summer of MoviePass hasn’t gone as planned, instead being plagued by movie blocks, bugs, ever-changing pricing structures and some very irate customers. Late last month, the service borrowed $5 million to end one of multiple outages.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, a shareholder has filed suit against the company, as its stock price has also felt the burn. Again, not particularly surprising. The suit claims, in part that the “defendants carried out a plan, scheme and course of conduct which was intended to and did, deceive the investing public and cause the plaintiff and other members of the class to purchase Helios common stock at artificially inflated prices.”
MoviePass, meanwhile, has continued to paint the picture of an an enthusiastic user base and a company working to leverage that into something resembling a profit. “Our community has shown an immense amount of enthusiasm over the past year,” CEO Mitch Lowe recently said in a statement, “and we trust that they will continue to share our vision to reinvigorate the movie industry.”