MoviePass is relaunching next month. Here’s how to sign up for the theater subscription service – NBC Chicago

MoviePass, the struggling subscription movie service, is set to relaunch next month, nearly three years after it was shut down due to financial difficulties.

The new MoviePass is set to launch “on or around Labor Day,” according to its website, and users wishing to join the service have a five-day window to sign up for a waiting list that has went live Thursday, August 25.

“Anyone who joins the waitlist will receive priority access to the service and 10 friend invites,” reads a notice on the MoviePass website. “Places are limited, don’t wait. Once the waiting list is closed, the only way to register will be to be invited by a friend.”

However, the site was already experiencing some technical difficulties on Thursday morning. Shortly after its waitlist opened at 9 a.m. ET, those who wanted to sign up reported receiving an error message.

MoviePass tweeted that its servers crashed due to “overwhelming demand”.

The issue was resolved and the waitlist was reopened approximately four hours later, according to a tweet posted at 1:20 p.m. ET.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t immediately clear which movie theater chains were actually participating, but the company’s site says the new service “will feature all major theaters that accept major credit cards in the United States.” A MoviePass spokesperson declined NBC News’ request for comment and pointed to a Business Insider article published Monday that said the service has partnerships with 25% of theaters nationwide.

Additionally, the service will launch in waves based on local interest, and is not initially available nationwide, according to the MoviePass website.

Another detail that seems vague is the price. The revived service will have three pricing tiers that will depend on the market, but are priced “generally” at $10, $20 and $30, with each tier earning a certain number of movie credits each month.

In 2019, MoviePass notified subscribers that it planned to shut down the service because its “efforts to recapitalize MoviePass have been unsuccessful to date. Before the service shut down, MoviePass had been struggling for more than a year. In March 2018, MoviePass launched a revamped version of its unlimited plan, which lets users watch one movie a day for $9.95 a month, as part of an eleventh-hour bid to revive the service. subscription. However, the service saw its subscriber base drop from over 3 million members to around 225,000 in April 2019.