MoviePass Experiences Financial Blunder, Receives Loan To Resume Operation

MoviePass and its patrons aren’t having the best day.

On Thursday, after MoviePass experienced digital ticketing problems and some customers were denied entry into theaters, the movie theater subscription company received a hefty bailout. Apparently, problems of the financial variety were causing the issues. MoviePass didn’t have enough money, so its parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., copped a short-term loan of more than $6 million from Hudson Bay in order to resume operation, reports Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg, MoviePass wasn’t able to clear payments, so some of their services were temporarily terminated (i.e. buying movie tickets for its subscribers). MoviePass’ most recent tweet (from Thursday night) seeks to offer some more explanation:

We’ve determined this issue is not with our card processor partners and will be continuing to work on a fix throughout this evening and night. If you have not headed to the theater yet, we recommend waiting for a resolution or utilizing e-ticketing which is not impacted.
— MoviePass (@MoviePass) July 27, 2018

It’s no secret MoviePass has been in money trouble for a while now—the company is on track to rack up $45 million in deficit each month this summer. Yikes. Perhaps in an effort to strengthen their marketing strategies, MoviePass began selling pun-themed merchandise in June, but there’s no word yet on how that’s working out for them.