CNBC Overtime’s Post

Transcript

Summer movie season is off to a strong start. Inside out too. This weekend could become the fastest animated movie to a billion dollars at the box office. Today, let's take time out with the CEO who loves movie theaters and believes there's still room for innovation in ticketing. Stacey Spikes is the cofounder and CEO of MoviePass. Yes, you heard me right, MoviePass. It still exists. Or maybe I should say it exists again. Stacy was running it when it was successful before private equity bought it out and brought in new leaders who set it on a path. To bankruptcy. Remember unlimited movies for 10 bucks a month? I couldn't last. Well, MoviePass now lets you see up to three movies a month for 10 bucks depending on the day and time. A Spikes was no stranger to the entertainment industry when he started the original movie Pass. He moved from Houston to LA at 18 and worked his way up the ladder in the music industry, then in film. By the time I was 21. Because everyone joining the label wanted boys to men's product manager, I had Queen Latifah. Boys to men. Eddie Murphy, Spike Lee and I did. I was doing spike soundtracks like Jungle Fever and Do the Right Thing, and so it's crazy how at such a young age I was already four or five years. On interns, right? I had that much time ahead of them because I was already in the mix. In 2011, Spikes and his cofounder launched MoviePass, which cracked the code to letting people buy movie tickets with the help of a smartphone and a subscription service scaling the company. That was expensive and an investor put new management in charge. That pushed Spikes out, spent wildly, bankrupted the company, and then 2 1/2 years ago during COVID, Spikes bought movie passes assets out of bankruptcy. When few believed that theaters had a future. You know, there's this moment. Sitting at home that I realized what? Made those companies. They didn't take. They may have gotten the company, but they didn't get what created the company. And I don't. It was just like this. Ah, you know what I have, I have everything that I need. And, and so I created another startup and I got it funded. I, I, we raised $3,000,000 pretty fast. And got going out of the gate and then. When MoviePass became went into bankruptcy, I looked around and found out no one had bought it. I went and bought it back. So I, I took my intelligence, made a new company, funded that company and went and bought the asset back. And now I have that company and this company. So the timeout take away, what's old is new consumers might be stretched, but they're still spending on experiences including the right movies and theaters are only 30% full overall, less outside of weekends spikes. Thinks he can use subscriptions and AI to drive incremental spending for theaters and get movie watchers a deal. He says MoviePass just turned its first annual profit earlier this year, and this month it got an equity investment from Forecast Labs. That's a venture group owned by CNBC's parent, Comcast. We'll see if the sequel to Movie Pass turns out better than the original.