*By: Madison Alworth*
AMC Theaters rolled out its MoviePass competitor Tuesday, dealing another blow to a company that's been hemorrhaging money and trying one strategy after another to stay afloat.
"MoviePass's business model is fundamentally an unprofitable one," said Rob Marvin, associate features editor of PCMag.com, in an interview with Cheddar last week. "They are subsidizing movie tickets for millions of people."
[The company, owned by data firm Helios & Matheson, charges customers $10 a month and allows them to see, essentially, a movie a day.](https://cheddar.com/videos/amcs-latest-blow-to-moviepass-goes-live) AMC's Stubs A-List, by contrast, charges twice as much per month and lets users see up to 3 movies a week. MoviePass's model has been criticized as unsustainable and the business lost $150 million last year.
To reverse those fortunes, the service has made various changes. Earlier this year it faced backlash for seeming to end its unlimited movie offer and last week announced that it will introduce a kind of surge pricing, charging users more to see popular movies at high-demand times.
In an attempt to sweeten the bad news, MoviePass said members will be able to "Bring-A-Guest" and buy one extra ticket directly on the MoviePass app. And members will be able to see IMAX and 3D movies for an additional fee.
The struggles highlight the fear among many users that MoviePass's offer may be too good to be true.
"As a MoviePass user myself, it's been great," Marvin said. "I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think this is going to last forever. We're just riding this out for as long as we can go."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/moviepass-will-cost-you-more)
Natalie Fertig, federal cannabis policy reporter at Politico Pro, joins Cheddar News to discuss a new YouGov poll that looks at how Americans feel about marijuana and politics.
A virtual gathering in the online space, Decentraland, of Elvis Presley impersonators is looking to grab the Guinness World Record for most Elvis impersonators in one place after the record-keeping org recently approved the use of avatars as stand-ins for people.
A powerful winter storm hit the Northeast over the weekend leaving 100,000 New Yorkers in the dark as well as snowfall up to 30.9 inches in parts of Massachusetts. The nor'easter hit with blizzard conditions of wind speed and poor visibility.
After classic rocker Neil Young demanded removal of his music from Spotify over vaccine misinformation coming from The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the platform made the decision to take down Young's songs and continue supporting Rogan with whom they have an exclusive contract. The move touched off a firestorm of controversy, leading to responses from both the streaming service and the podcasting host. Evan Nierman, CEO of Red Banyan Crisis PR, joined Cheddar to break down the latest on the fracas. "I think when [Spotify] initially said, we're not going to be commenting on that, that was a silly move because guess what? They did end up commenting about it, and nine times out of 10, when an organization says they're not going to be issuing a comment, they ultimately do," Nierman noted.
The 1999 cult classic "Fight Club" has been given a very different ending in China — and this time, the authorities win. Cheddar News speaks with Joan Solsman, senior media reporter at CNET who breaks down how China is using films for political messaging.
NFT art platform TRLab recently raised $4.2 million in funding. TRLab launched just last year but says its platform focused on NFT curation and distribution is growing quickly. The company hopes to bridge traditional and digital art worlds and help artists explore NFTs as an emerging medium. TRLab co-founder and chairwoman Xin Li-Cohen and co-founder and CEO Audrey Ou joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
