MoviePass CEO Stacy Spikes is Still Committed to Revolutionizing Moviegoing

If you're an avid moviegoer, and have been for years, there's a good chance you remember the period between 2017-2018 when MoviePass took the industry by storm. Although launched in 2011, the subscription-based service, which allowed subscribers to purchase up to a movie ticket a day for a monthly fee, radically changed in 2017. The service's cost was lowered to merely $9.95/month, less than the cost of a movie ticket at most major theaters.

MoviePass exploded in popularity, and subscriber-count ballooned as a result. In December 2016, MoviePass had about 20,000 subscribers. By February 2018, the company had over two million. People like me used the company's trademark red debit card to see anywhere from two to five movies a week, all for $9.95/month.

MoviePass' meteoric rise and predictable-yet-unfortunate fall was chronicled in an HBO documentary called MoviePass, MovieCrash, released earlier this year. The service was the brain-child of two entrepreneurs, Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt, who were intent on revolutionizing moviegoing. After being fired from the company ahead of its bankruptcy, Spikes was able to buy MoviePass back and relaunch it in 2022.

I caught up with Stacy Spikes over the phone to chat with him about the recent documentary, MoviePass' relaunch, and what he perceives needs to happen for more people to continue supporting movies by going to the theaters.

One of the questions I was itching to ask Spikes was what the response has been to MoviePass, MovieCrash. Even as a MoviePass subscriber for a significant period of time, I had no idea the innerworkings of the company beyond the headlines and the fact that the user-experience was constantly changing. Above all, Spikes is happy that him and Watt's story was finally public:

[....] Hamet and I really thought no one was going to hear what really happened. We just thought history was going to write itself as it was. [MoviePass] went out of business and that was it. And, the Mark Wahlberg-camp at HBO reached out and felt this was an American story that needed to be told [....] However it came out, it was just good because so many people lost money, so many people wanted to know what happened [....] but the fact that from some serendipity from the gods we were able to buy [MoviePass] back and relaunch it, and the timing happened that those two things crescendo-ed together is just unheard of. - Stacy Spikes, per our interview

Spikes is an incredibly ambitious individual, and he knows what it's like to be an outsider. He wrote a book called Black Founder: The Hidden Power of Being an Outsider describing not only his experiences as a Black entrepreneur, but the way in which the system could be changed if more people like him capitalized on their talents and started giving a new face to business.

I also chatted with Spikes about the recent announcement from AMC Theaters and Regal regarding over $2.2 billion to be spent on capital improvements to theaters all across the country. In Spikes' mind, this is long overdue, and his analysis of both the lingering issues in multiplexes in America coupled with the struggle of getting Americans back in movie theaters is must-hear stuff.

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Take a listen to my interview with Stacy Spikes below, and learn more about MoviePass post-relaunch on its official website. You can also stream MoviePass, MovieCrash exclusively on Max.