As technology evolves so does the way that we receive information. When I was a young lad, we would look at the newspaper for the local showtimes at movie theaters. Then there was also MovieFone, which was an interactive phone guide for film listings and showtimes.

This service which launched back in 1989 was very successful. Back in it’s prime around 1995 there were around 100 million people using it’s service. Then in 1999 it was sold to AOL for $388 million in stock.

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Unfortunately since then it has seen a downward spiral that hit a all time low last week. In 2015, it was part of AOL’s $4.4 billion sale to Verizon. Then in 2018 it was sold to Helios & Matheson for $23 million. Their goal was to use it’s 6 million monthly average user at the time to grow it’s subscriber base.

This past week MovieFone hit an all time low as it was sold at a bankruptcy auction on Thursday according the The Hollywood Reporter. It was acquired by a business listed as Born In Cleveland, LLC for a bid of $1,075,000.

Helios & Matheson are the same company that owned MoviePass. They ones who thought that they could create service where they could offer a movie ticket a day for $9.99 a month. Their argument was that it would be a potential boost for theaters. 2 years ago MoviePass got to about 3 million subscribers. But the problem was that they kept changing the pricing and plans as they constantly ran into financial trouble.

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It will be interesting to see what this buyer does with MovieFone as there as so many places that offer the same thing. MoviePass was a good idea, something that some theater chains have taken advantage of and made better like Regal Unlimited.

Did you every use MovieFone? Let us know in the comment section below!

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Source: The Hollywood Reporter