MoviePass, MovieCrash is now streaming on Max. From the outside, the implosion of the movie ticket subscription app MoviePass feels far too convoluted for a 90-minute movie. But documentary filmmaker Muta'Ali has found an easy, approachable explanation: It was greed that killed this beautiful beast.
That avarice, which took MoviePass from a tiny, fledgling tech startup to a corporate behemoth and then a cautionary tale, was an outside virus added to a company that initially espoused the high ideal of making moviegoing simpler and more accessible. Muta'Ali briskly retraces the origins of the business from the mouths of the people who built it, making its glossy red card debit card a symbol of a worthwhile dream that was ultimately destroyed in 2018. In MoviePass, MovieCrash, there are three perspectives on what exactly went wrong.
The first belongs to the employees. Typically in these kinds of rise and fall movies, a filmmaker will interview the usual suspects – the executives, investors, and other major movers and shakers — to provide their behind-the-scenes insights. What’s refreshing about Muta'Ali’s strategy is his interest in the day-to-day, ground-level observers rather than focusing exclusively on the C-suite occupants.
We hear from programmers like Omar Miscara and customer service agents such as Emmanuel Freeman and Sidney Weinshel, who were there both for the company’s idealistic beginnings and dealt with the disaster of its untimely end. Their reactions to.