Moviefone, the once popular call line for local movie theater listings and times, has finally declared bankruptcy.
The company that acquired the brand in April 2018, Helios & Matheson, also owns MoviePass, which also recently filed for bankruptcy last month.
With Moviefone going bankrupt, Helios & Matheson laid off all of its workers, except one.
Moviefone was started in 1989 to provide movie listings via calling into a phone number. At first, it only served New York City and Los Angeles, but it quickly rose in popularity and spread throughout the United States.
AOL purchased the company in 1999 for $388 million. In 2001, the company entered a partnership with MovieTickets.com and later formed a partnership with Fandango in 2014.
In 2018, Helios & Matheson acquired Moviefone for $9 million in cash and stock. The most recent valuation put it at a little over $4 million, or just 1% of its value when AOL purchased it.
Moviefone was featured in a season 7 episode of Seinfeld, where Kramer gets a new phone number (555-FILK) which is close to Moviefone's number, 555-FILM. Kramer ends up getting a bunch of phone calls from people who think they are calling Moviefone, so he reads the movie listings from the newspaper to them.
Source: SlashFilm.com
Photo: Getty Images