• by Wayne Friedman , October 23, 2018

Helios and Matheson Analytics is unloading its beleagured in-theater movie subscription service MoviePass.

A spinoff for MoviePass means operating as a publicly trading company under a new name: MoviePass Entertainment Holdings.

“HMNY largely has become synonymous with MoviePass in the public’s eye, leading us to believe our shareholders and the market perception of HMNY might benefit from separating our movie-related assets from the rest of our company,” stated Ted Farnsworth, CEO, Helios and Matheson Analytics.

Helios and Matheson said it would continue to focus on data analytics and consumer technologies, such as its Zone Technologies, the maker of safety and navigation app RedZone Map.

MoviePass has seen sharp gains and declines since Helios and Matheson took a majority stake in August 2017.

Soon after that deal, MoviePass dropped its pricing to $9.95 for subscribers who could see 30 movies a month -- one per day -- from its $50-a-month price. As a result, MoviePass subscribers rocketed upward, to more than 3 million from 500,000.

At the same time, this caused a major cash drain on the company, as well as a dropping stock price of Helios and Matheson.

In late August of this year, a new plan was installed -- drastically limiting the number of movies subscribers could see -- to three movies a month for $9.95. For its part, MoviePass said this would have “no impact whatsoever on over 85% of our subscribers.”

Helios and Matheson’s stock closed up 15.4% on Tuesday to $0.02.