The movie studio's executives revealed that they have reached an agreement with Apple to sell their content online during a financial earnings conference call.
"We also have digital delivery deals in place with Cinema Now, MovieLink, and iTunes, with upcoming announcements with at least two more major industry players," Lions Gate's chief executive Jon Feltheimer revealed during the call.
Steve Beeks, president of Lions Gate Entertainment revealed that the itunes movie store will launch before the year is over: "In terms of iTunes movie downloads, I think most likely some time before the end of the year. We know when they are planning on launching, but since they have not announced it publicly, I do not think it is our place to say anything more about that. Calendar year."
Apple was going to announce the new store at the Worldwide Developers Conference which took place last week, but elected to postpone the service's roll-out until September 2006 says Apple insider website Think Secret.
We are still being told that despite Apple's best efforts, the store will only feature movie rentals. In July we reported that Apple has signed agreements with Walt Disney, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros.
Lions Gate Entertainment has a home video library of more than 8000 films, which includes: Waiting.., Crash, Crank, Employee of the Month, the SAW series, The Descent, Fahrenheit 9/11, American Psycho, Gods and Monsters, Dogma, Total Recall, Reservoir Dogs, On Golden Pond, Young Guns, Dirty Dancing, Terminator 2, Natural Born Killers, Kids, Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Can Wilder, House of 1000 Corpses, Open Water, The Punisher, The Devil's Rejects, Lord of War, Hostel, It's A Wonderful Life and many more.
While a online movie rental store is not the perfect situation, it could be great for consumers if Apple offered a subscription model. Consumers would be able to pay a monthly fee (say for example $19.99) and would be able to download and watch (on their iPod or computer) as many movies as they want for as long as they pay the monthly subscription cost. But I doubt the studios would be up for such a service at this point in time. Or will they?