Sinemia Is Dead, While MoviePass Inexplicably Lives On

After a prolonged battle with financial and legal difficulties, Sinemia has died at the age of 5. Sinemia provided discounted movie-subscription plans, and rose to prominence around the same time that similar service MoviePass was thriving. When MoviePass suffered setback, Sinemia attempted to attract disgruntled customers with the promise of a more rewarding experience. Yet, while many reasoned MoviePass would succumb to a painful death, it inexplicably lives on, while Sinemia has passed into the ether.

There have been rumors of Sinemia's demise bubbling over for weeks, and now, it's official. When you fire up the Sinemia app, you're met with the following message:

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Dear Customer,

Today, with a heavy heart, we're announcing that Sinemia is closing its doors and ending operations in the US effective immediately.

As Sinemia, we set out our journey with the vision to help as many moviegoers as possible to enjoy an affordable and better experience at the movies by a creating a movie ticket subscription service that adds value for both the moviegoers and the movie industry. Since 2014, we've been fine-tuning our model and serving movie-goers with a slate of affordable and flexible subscription plans.

We are all witnessing that the future of moviegoing is evolving through movie ticket subscriptions. However, we didn't see a path to sustainability as an independent movie ticket subscription service in the face of competition from movie theaters as they build their own subscriptions. Thanks to the cost advantage and cross-sell opportunities, movie theaters will be prominent in the movie ticket subscription economy.

While we are proud to have created a best in market service, our efforts to cover the cost of unexpected legal proceedings and raise the funds required to continue operations have not been sufficient. The competition in the US market and the core economics of what it costs to deliver Sinemia's end-to-end experience ultimately lead us to the decision of discontinuing our US operations.

Despite the best efforts of our team, it has been difficult for us as a start-up to continue providing our services to the moviegoers in the US without resources and enough capital to meet increased operations and legal costs.

We want to sincerely thank our customers that believed in us and helped us along the way for their love and support.

We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to share our dream with you.

Sinemia Inc.

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Sinemia was notable for having no limitation on the dates or movie showtimes, and offering movie format available. However, it wasn't all smooth sailing. In 2018, customers filed a class-action lawsuit agains the company, alleging that Sinemia had ripped them off with a change in fees. Earlier this year, Sinemia drew more heat when they began terminating certain accounts for seemingly no reason.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Sinemia was considering closing down to "focus instead on building membership programs for cinema chains," adding:

The company is considering the step as it copes with mounting legal costs and a backlash from consumers. Sinemia said last month that it canceled 3 percent of its user accounts due to "misuse or fraudulent activity" and that it would issue refunds to those members. That led to complaints from customers online.

And now, Sinemia is no more. But hey, MoviePass is still around! Somehow!