Movielink, a subsidiary of five major Hollywood studios, has just reached a groundbreaking agreement with the media giant Twentieth Century Fox to offer all of the studio’s films online for the first time in history.
This significant deal was announced on Monday morning (November 21, US time), at a time when film studios and television networks are exploring new ways to distribute films, including video on demand and optimizing films for mobile phones and iPod video.
Previously, Twentieth Century Fox had made some of its films available on sites like CinemaNow.com, but it is only now that the company has signed a contract with Movielink. The reason for this delay was Fox’s desire to wait until broadband usage rates increased, as well as new technologies enabling film downloads to be viewed on more accessible television screens.
Peter Levinsohn, President of Fox’s Digital Media and Pay Television division, predicts that the coming months will be “truly vibrant” and that the online film market will “begin to grow“.
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Mean Girls, one of the hit films available on Movielink |
The existence of Movielink and many other legal film download services is partly to combat illegal film piracy. However, until now, Movielink has struggled to gain traction because downloaded films could only be viewed on computer screens or TVs with complicated wiring.
This is the basis for Levinsohn’s prediction that the next few months will witness a strong resurgence of Movielink, especially as home electronics such as the Xbox 360 game console will also be able to stream films.
Additionally, film studios will experiment with various new business models, including allowing viewers to purchase films online and burn them onto DVD. “2006 will be a pivotal year for the digital film industry,” stated Jim Ramo, CEO of Movielink.
At the launch, Fox will promote many of its blockbuster films, including Will Smith’s “Robots“. New film titles will be updated continuously in the near future.
Thien Y
