Ted Farnsworth – MoviePass
He attempted a daring 'fake-it-'til-you-make-it' business plan. He didn't make it.
Ted Farnsworth was the brains behind a doomed subscription service called MoviePass – one of the most daring “fake-it-’til-you-make-it schemes” ever attempted in the Internet age.
The MoviePass deal, launched in 2017, was a bargain for moviegoers. For less than $10 a month, they got a ticket to see a movie a day. The service grew to 3 million subscribers, but even a third-grade math student could see that it made zero economic sense.
Farnsworth ran MoviePass’s publicly traded parent company, Helios & Matheson Analytics. Former Netflix and Redbox executive Mitchell Lowe served as MoviePass’ CEO.
They may have hoped they could eventually monetize their growing subscriber base. They touted a plan to leverage their massive subscriber data base, but it was never quite clear how they would do this.
They also must have hoped their idiotic 2018 gangster biopic, Gotti, would have turned a dime. But in the meantime, they told a lot of lies.
“Farnsworth … repeatedly lied to the public to artificially inflate these companies’ stock prices, defraud investors, and enrich himself and his co-conspirators,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent S. Wible in a news release. “He concealed that MoviePass’ subscription model was a money-losing gimmick.”
Farnsworth pleaded guilty to defrauding investors, and he has been locked up since his bond was revoked in August 2023. While out on bond, he allegedly used company funds to pay for male prostitutes. Now he’s inmate No. 30214-510 at a federal lockup in Miami.
Lowe also pleaded guilty.
MoviePass filed bankruptcy in 2020 after racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for its investors. But the debacle made for a great film on HBO last year called MoviePass/Movie Crash.
Well, that’s one way to make a movie.