Movies Anywhere Debuts With Support of 5 Studios, 4 Retailers
In an effort to boost ownership of digital movies, five movies studios and four digital retailers have banded together to create Movies Anywhere, an online storage locker for movies purchased through a variety of platforms.
If this service sounds familiar, it's because it actually debuted as Disney Movies Anywhere back in 2014. Disney created its own service as an alternative to UltraViolet. Perhaps the other studios got tired of waiting for Disney to join them, and decided it was simpler to go in with Disney's solution. The Disney site now directs users to the new broadly-supported service.
While DVD sales are waning, consumers have been slow to adopt digital movie ownership partly because keeping track of purchased titles from various online retailers is a hassle. Movies Anywhere aims to do what UltraViolet couldn't: provide a single destination for titles purchased almost anywhere.
The five studios behind Movies Anywhere are Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Entertainment. The four digital retailers are Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu. Consumers can link their existing accounts to view purchased movies anywhere on any device. The service offers apps for Roku, iOS, Android, and Amazon devices, as well as browser access. More retailers, platforms, and studios will join in the future, the service promises.
Movies Anywhere debuts with access to a library of 7,300 titles, so it's likely that not every purchased digital movie will be supported but that will likely expand over time. As an opening promotion, consumers who activate an account and link it to Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes, or Vudu will receive digital copies of two movies: Ice Age and Ghostbusters. If they link to a second retailer they'll get copies of Big Hero 6, Jason Bourne, and the Lego Movie, as well.
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