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MoviePass raising prices to $15 a month, will limit access to big films

The $9.95 MoviePass price plan will soon be a thing of the past.
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Empty comfortable red seats with numbers in cinema

After a rough few days highlighted by service outages and the company running out of cash, MoviePass is making some big changes to its service.

MoviePass' parent company, Helios and Matheson, announced Tuesday morning several new measures that it believes can keep the company from going under in the long-term.

The most notable changes include raising the price of its standard plan from $9.95 to $14.95 per month and limiting access to major films. The price increase announcement comes less than a week after the company's CEO emphasized in an apology for service outages that they want to avoid raising subscription prices.

The price increase is set to go into effect within the next 30 days.

Tuesday's announcement also confirmed that MoviePass will no longer let its customers use the service to see first run movies that open on more than 1,000 screens, during the first two weeks of a film's release. This weekend's release of Mission Impossible 6 was the first film included in the new restriction.

But MoviePass noted that it'll allow major studios to partner with the company to make those blockbuster films available on a "promotional basis."

The company also recently began rolling out peak pricing, where users have to pay an additional fee to see a high demand movie or showtime.

"We believe that the measures we began rolling out last week will immediately reduce cash burn by 60% and will continue to generate lower funding needs in the future,” Ted Farnsworth, chairman and CEO of Helios, said in a statement.

MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe described the changes as essential steps to make sure they can keep "the most attractive subscription service in the industry."

"Our community has shown an immense amount of enthusiasm over the past year, and we trust that they will continue to share our vision to reinvigorate the movie industry," Lowe said.

Meanwhile, AMC Theatres announced Tuesday its subscription program, Stubs-A-List, has signed up more than 175,000 members in the first five weeks. Its service lets users see up to three films a week for $19.95 per month.

Since unveiling its $9.95 price plan last August, MoviePass' membership has surged to more than 3 million users.

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