*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)
Data from a Slack Future Forum survey shows employees returning full-time to the office are not thrilled with their experience. Sheela Subramanian, vice [resident of the Future Forum, joined Cheddar News to talk about how worker satisfaction is worsening in returning to the office compared to those workers with flexible schedules. "Employers need to actually empower their teams to create team level agreements and also skill their managers to better lead distributed teams because everybody's work is different," Subramanian noted.
UPSIDE foods, a company that makes cultivated meat products, recently raised $400 million in a Series C round.
UPSIDE says it's developing a way to grow real meat, poultry, and seafood, without the need to raise animals for human consumption. It's a process that gets the attention of some big-name backers, including Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Dr. Uma Valeti, Founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Samantha Tan, professional racing driver and team owner of Samantha Tan Racing, joins Cheddar News to talk the motorsport community, being an ambassador for the AAPI Victory Alliance, and her mental health.
Hosts of the new MTV ]show "Help! I'm in a Secret Relationship," recording artist Travis Mills and actor Rahne Jones, joined Cheddar News to talk about the new show and how sheds light on romantic partners who are keeping their other halves hidden away from other parts of their lives. "Travis and I go in and we investigate and figure out what is going on in hopes that we can sit the two parties down and have a resolution, a conversation, a productive conversation, in hopes that the relationships remain intact," said Jones. "But unfortunately that does not happen all the time, which is where, where the drama, where the drama comes." Mills added that “I honestly think that the pandemic gave people who want to hide their partner a really good excuse."
Once called the rent-forever generation, Millennials are bucking the trend. But just as they age into their prime home-buying years, they’ve run up against a red hot housing market exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Cheddar News senior Reporter Chloe Aiello went to Hudson, N.Y., to learn more.
Every year on April 8th, we celebrate the deliciousness of empanadas for National Empanada Day! This time, Cheddar's News Wrap was joined by New York's own Empanada Mama to try some of interesting flavors.
The Biden administration is making changes to federal student loan programs, bringing more than 3.6 million people closer to debt forgiveness under the new rules, providing 40,000 with immediate debt cancellation, and allowing several thousand more with older loans to get some relief. Rob Franek, Editor-In-Chief of the Princeton Review, joined Cheddar News to break down how these changes might impact the lives of student loan borrowers and addresses some of the pushback against doing even more. "This is not a bankruptcy bailout of industries that are supporting the American economy," he said. These are for students right now who would otherwise be hobbled financially if they didn't experience some sort of forgiveness overall."
Emmanuel Macron staves off the far right challenger Marine Le Pen in France, conservative lawmakers find themselves embroiled in varying controversies, and pickleball is hotter than ever in the U.S.
