- Ted Farnsworth is the former CEO of Helios and Matheson Analytics, which previously owned MoviePass.
- The documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash” shows how he blew through hundreds of millions of dollars.
- He and former MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe pleaded guilty to securities fraud.
In the HBO documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” Ted Farnsworth is the CEO of the publicly traded Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY) when the company takes a majority stake in the movie-theater-subscription startup MoviePass in 2017.
Under Farnsworth’s watch, MoviePass became a sensation after he and then-CEO Mitch Lowe dropped the monthly subscription fee from $30 a month to $10. It led to millions of subscribers and the company being hailed as the Netflix of movie theaters. Farnsworth and Lowe touted themselves in the press as the masterminds behind it all.
The documentary — based on reporting by Business Insider —reveals the more complicated reality of the phenomenon, showing how MoviePass cofounders Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt were pushed out of the company after the arrival of Farnsworth and Lowe.
With Farnsworth and Lowe at the helm, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to not just keep the unsustainable $10-a-month plan going, but also on lavish parties at Coachella, and starting a movie production arm best known for releasing the 2018 movie “Gotti,” a biopic on notorious crime boss John Gotti starring John Travolta that received a 0% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
In 2020, both HMNY and MoviePass went bankrupt (Spikes has since relaunched MoviePass), and two years later, Farnsworth and Lowe were charged with securities fraud.
As the documentary shows, the crash of MoviePass is just one of many failed ventures of the 61-year-old Farnsworth. Business Insider reached out to Farnsworth for comment but didn’t get a response.
Here’s a rundown of many of those companies (some of which went bankrupt), what Farnsworth did after MoviePass, and why he’s currently in jail.
Note: “MoviePass, MovieCrash” is based on Business Insider’s award-winning reporting on the company.
