MoviePass, one of cinema’s biggest failures, is coming back, and it's fiercer than ever. Three years after the service's infamous closure, the cinema subscription service is planned to relaunch in America later this year.
MoviePass will make sure you're watching adverts
The new version of MoviePass will work similarly to its old incarnation. Monthly subscribers will be able to watch a large selection of movies in the cinema for a low cost. However, the service will no longer offer unlimited movies like it used to.
Instead, subscribers are given credits that can be exchanged to watch movies in the cinema. Subscriptions are tiered, giving some subscribers more film credits than others. But the service will also offer a way to earn credits: advertisements.
In the creepiest move possible, MoviePass will not be satisfied with users simply opening an add. Instead, the revised service will track a viewer’s eyeballs during ad playback to make sure they're watching the advert.
“What it does is it basically creates a transaction between you and the brand,” claimed CEO Stacy Spikes. “Your phone, your device uses your own facial detection,” Spikes added. “It doesn’t go to the cloud, nobody goes through anything other than you and your information in yours. And you opt in to do it on your own.”
Read More: Democrats urge governments to abandon dangerous facial recognition tech
Created from a love of product placement
Spikes compares the service’s new eyeball-tracking feature to product placement in movies. (You could separate a spine with that stretch!) Additionally, the CEO claimed that they are actually a huge fan of product placement. (Okay?)
“I love product placement in movies,” the CEO said. “I love the cars, I love the watches, I love the clothes. I’m that person that sometimes has a notepad and I’m writing down, is that Hugo Boss?”
Spikes’ movie service isn't the only future in which ad watch time will be tracked. For example, Facebook's VR Metaverse is said to be planning adverts that track viewers’ eyeballs and heart rate to push perfect ads every time.
It’s a horrifying future. While MoviePass viewers are watching ads in exchange for something else, it's a haunting start for the future of ads in services. Once again, it’s also incredibly creepy! Who thinks of doing that?!
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