MoviePass Halts Repeat Viewings as 'Avengers: Infinity War' Hits Theaters

The no-repeat policy arrives just as Marvel Studios' highly anticipated blockbuster opens.

MoviePass appears to have watered down its service again by restricting new and old subscribers alike from seeing the same movie twice.

Just in time for Avengers: Infinity War, users of the subscription service woke up Friday to see a new wrinkle in the MoviePass terms of service, written in all capital letters, no less: “THE SERVICE PROHIBITS REPEAT VIEWINGS OF THE SAME MOVIE.”

MoviePass had been wowing consumers with its too-good-to-be-true service since August by offering them a movie ticket per day for just $9.95 a month, but the company seems to be chipping away at that bargain.

Two weeks ago, MoviePass offered a special “promotion” that bundled iHeartRadio All Access with a stripped-down version of MoviePass that supplied just four tickets a month. Then on Wednesday, CEO Mitch Lowe told The Hollywood Reporter that he isn’t sure the ticket-per-day offering would ever return.

And now comes the no-repeat policy.

MoviePass has always stated in its terms of service language that it maintains the right to change its rules, though some of its customers have purchased a year’s subscription in advance and can’t be pleased that the policy is now different from the one in place when they shelled out their money.

“Anyone with an issue should call customer service,” Lowe told THR on Friday.

Also added to the MoviePass terms of service on Friday was a line saying that premium plans are in the works, and Lowe said the first will be a “couples” product so that users can bring a friend or spouse to the theater. He’s also working on a plan that will include Imax and 3D movies.

“There’s, like, 100 new features we’re working on,” Lowe said.

As for the out-of-the-blue no-repeat-movies policy, the exec said it’s actually a reinstatement of an old policy that was abandoned more than a year ago, and that it is necessary again to cut down on fraud.

“When we took that policy down, we saw some people turning MoviePass into a cottage industry, standing in front of a theater selling their tickets to Star Wars, or whatever,” he said.

Lowe did not know whether the plan that charges $9.95 a month for a movie per day would ever return, but he didn’t rule it out. He reiterated Friday that he expects 5 million subscribers by year’s end, and he said that MoviePass has seen no drop in new subscribers since moving to the package that includes iHeartRadio and only four movie tickets monthly.

“It’s absolutely wonderful to have so many naysayers,” he said. “That gives us a free runway where everyone is terrified to compete with us.”