Hollywood Meets the Web

The Internet has been impacting the way music is distributed for years now. Next up, the movies.

Until recently, only small independent film studios or directors have made their movies available via the Web. But that began to change about a month ago when five major Hollywood studios--Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.--said they would launch an on-demand movie service for broadband Internet users.

The second such venture was announced just two weeks ago, this time by The Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. The two studios plan to relaunch early next year the "Movies.com" site, http://www.movies.com, as a movies-on-demand service featuring films from The Walt Disney Studios, including its Miramax Film division, Twentieth Century Fox and others.

Sensing a radical shift in the way movies are distributed, video rental chain Blockbuster, based in Dallas, has been testing its own version of a movies-on-demand service. The "Blockbuster Entertainment On-Demand" service would deliver films via a set-top box to televisions. It is currently being offered in Seattle, Portland, and Salt Lake City. A technical trial of the service has also taken place in New York City. Consumers using the system are able to start, stop, pause, and rewind the movies, much like they would a VHS tape. Blockbuster also announced in February that it has entered into an agreement with Universal Pictures to make the studio's films available for digital streaming via the On-Demand service.

Not to be left out, movie theater owners are also tapping the power of the Internet in an attempt to make the movie-going experience more convenient for their customers.

New print-at-home technology, for instance, enables visitors to a movie theater chain in Las Vegas to log on to the Fandango.com Web site, http://www.fandango.com, to purchase and print out their tickets before going to the theater. Century Theatres announced the partnership with Fandango.com a few weeks ago.

Upon arriving at the theater, the visitors present the printout--which contains a unique bar code--to the ticket-taker, who in turn scans it with a handheld device before allowing the person to enter the theater.

Fandango.com has been rolling out the service to theaters across the U.S. over the past year. "As we make at-home ticketing available in other markets in the months ahead, it will significantly improve the experience for movie-goers by allowing them to bypass the line to the box office and proceed directly to their seats," Art Levitt, Fandango's CEO, said earlier this year.