Movies Anywhere has confirmed that it will begin shutting down its Screen Pass feature on May 1st, 2023. After this time, Movies Anywhere users will no longer be able to send any Screen Passes to friends and family members.
For those unfamiliar with Screen Pass, the feature was added back in 2020, during the height of the lockdowns, as a way to remotely share movies with others.
Essentially, Movies Anywhere users could pick a Screen Pass-eligible movie from their library, send a Screen Pass to someone, and that person could then watch the movie for free. Passes do expire, however, so recipients only have a limited time to watch. In total, three Screen Passes could be shared each month.
With the feature now coming to an end, users of the service will no longer be able to share movies from their Movies Anywhere library starting from May 1st.
In terms of Screen Passes that are sent before the May deadline, Movies Anywhere says that they will continue to work, allowing the recipients to accept and finish watching the movie. However, the announcement does also make clear that support for the feature will fully come to an end on June 1st.
Considering Screen Passes must be accepted within 7 days and then activated within another 14 days, all existing Passes should have expired by the final June 1st deadline.
While the announcement doesn’t explicitly state why the feature is being discontinued, it did say that Movies Anywhere is “committed to focusing on an experience which highlights the things our users are most passionate about, primarily growing their collections and watching their favorite movies across platforms and devices.”
Whether that means the feature wasn’t all that popular is unclear, but it is probably part of the reason. That, along with the reduced need to watch remotely with others.
Regardless of the reason, those that had used and enjoyed Screen Pass have up until May 1st to send more, and June 1st for existing Passes to be used.
Leave a Reply