Back at the beginning of the summer a new service called MoviePass announced that it was going to be launching, first in the San Francisco area, and then expanding outward. What they planned to be was a subscription service, ala Netflix, where you pay a monthly fee of $50 and then get unlimited access to as many movie theater tickets as you want. It was a solid idea that I think could have gained a lot of traction, except for one thing; the MoviePass people didn’t really tell any of the theater chains that they were planning this. Almost immediately after the announced launch, AMC sent out a press release saying that they were going to have no part in the service. This effectively put the kibosh on a poorly thought out plan. That was a long time ago in Internet time, however, and now MoviePass is back, with a new partner, and a new plan for launch.

A couple days ago it was announced that a new startup called MoviePass would work as a sort of Netflix for seeing movies in theaters. For a $50 a month subscription, members of MoviePass could then see as many movies as they wanted. The problem with a service like this is that MoviePass would need the cooperation of all of the nation’s biggest theater chains in order to be a service worth using. I know personally that if a MoviePass-like service were adopted by both AMC and Landmark theaters, then it would be well worth my money to purchase a membership. A pretty big wrinkle in these plans has already surfaced, however, seeing as AMC has already officially announced that they won’t be taking part.