First, MoviePass blacks out the night of the Marvel premiere of Ant-Man and a second disruption brings the app down – again. Last Thursday, MoviePass ran out of money, disrupting service to its subscribers Thursday and part of Friday. To get the company back up and running again, parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics (NASDAQ: HMNY) borrowed $5 million on an emergency basis from hedge fund Hudson Bay, reports The Verge. In an SEC filing, Helios and Matheson said it would use the emergency funding to pay the company’s merchant and fulfillment processors, says Business Insider.

MoviePass addressed the problem in a note to subscribers on its website:

“To our subscribers: First, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused from the temporary outage in the app over the past days. We have handled the issues on the back-end, and our app is now up-and-running with stability at 100 percent. We thank you for your patience and your ongoing support.”

The company went on to talk about its new demand-based pricing including Peak Pricing, which it introduced earlier this month, and upcoming additions including Bring-a-Guest and Premium Features which it plans to roll out soon. The new surge pricing model allows subscribers to choose to see new movies at non-peak prices or pay an extra fee of $2 to $6 per ticket to see the latest movie premieres.

“We share all of this with you as we believe in explaining to your, our customer, why we are doing what we are doing. We ask for your understanding and vocal support during this time, as we continue to fundamentally change an industry that hasn’t evolved much in years. In fact, ticket prices have risen so much that it’s now simply too expensive for many of us to go to the movies.

MoviePass’ mission is to make moviegoing accessible to everyone and to enhance the power of discovery – but we need your support as we refine our model for the long haul,” wrote Mitch Lowe. “…We’re MoviePass and because of you, we are more than three million strong.”

But wait, there’s more. Yesterday, MoviePass issued a news release to announce new changes that will help move the company toward profitability. Yes, that includes yet another pricing change.

“Today, the company has implemented several elements of a long-term growth plan to protect the existing community and set it up for future sustainable growth,” says the news release.

“Over the pat year, we challenged an entrenched industry while maintaining the financially transparent records of a publicly traded company. We believe that the measures we began rolling out last week will immediately reduce cash burn by 60 percent and will continue to generate lower funding needs in the future,” the company says.

The changes include:

• The company will raise the standard pricing plan to $14.95 per month within the next 39 days.
• First Run Movies that open up on 1,000+ screens will have limited availability during the first two weeks of their release.
• Implementation of “additional tactics to prevent abuse of the MoviePass service”

The company also said it will generate incremental non-subscription revenue of approximately $4 to $6 per subscriber per quarter, but did not say what that revenue would come from – increased fees, add-ons, or something else. It is also working on developing or owning original content and creating strategic marketing partnerships and promotions.

“These changes are meant to protect the longevity of our company and prevent abuse of the service. While no one likes change, these are essential steps to continue providing the most attractive subscription service in the industry. Our community has shown an immense amount of enthusiasm over the past year, and we trust that they will continue to share our vision to reinvigorate the movie industry,” said Mitch Lowe, MoviePass CEO.

Insider Take:

This is just the latest news in a string of concerning moves by MoviePass to “redefine moviegoing.” The company has changed its pricing more times than we can count, and while it boasts 3 million members, it is going to have a hard time retaining those members with continued outages and unexpected price increases. Subscribers won’t care why the outages occurred or the prices were jacked up, and the company’s pleas that they show vocal support are not likely to yield much goodwill. With growing competition from services like Sinemia and AMC Theatres, MoviePass needs to do something spectacular to save itself from losing subscribers in droves while keeping itself afloat. We aren’t holding out much hope.