The curated film streaming platform Mubi is reportedly unleashing a movie-a-week subscription streaming pass upon New York City later this month, much to the delight of anyone who remembers the ill-fated MoviePass and wishes they would replicate that model with arthouse films.
A subscription will allow members to take in one preselected film a week of the streamer’s choosing, according to Deadline, at participating New York City theaters that currently include Film Forum, Film at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, IFC Center, Nitehawk Cinema and Paris Theater. The service, dubbed Mubi Go, is set to roll out in Los Angeles next as early as 2022, and will eventually be rolled out in select markets nationwide.
We don’t know what the future holds for pricing on the plan but Mubi says for a “limited time” users in New York City can get sign up for its usual price of $10.99 a month. Current users will be automatically enrolled and just need to check the Mubi app for their ticket code. To be clear, that’s Mubi’s streaming service and four movie tickets for 11 bucks.
Notably, the first film that will be available to Mubi subscribers will be a Netflix original, with the first wave of subscribers invited to attend a theatrical screening of Passing, directed by Rebecca Hall, before it debuts on the streaming platform. (The film has already premiered at Sundance and screened at the New York Film Festival.)
“The theatrical moviegoing experience is so essential, and we’re thrilled to extend Mubi’s curatorial voice beyond our streaming platform to hand-pick great films for people to watch in theaters — first in New York, then across the whole country,” Chris Wells, director of U.S. distribution, said in a statement.
While commercial theaters have been steadily recovering from the ravaging effects the Covid-19 pandemic had on in-person movie attendance, arthouse cinemas have predictably faced a slower recovery period. Mubi, which has more than 10 million members globally, has long been doing its part to advocate for pinkies-up filmé lovers, and hopefully, Mubi Go has a broad enough appeal to attract subscribers of all demographics and help the same struggling arthouse cinemas that are showing some of the most beautiful new releases out there (sorry, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it’s nothing personal).