Have a late night craving to watch Pirates of the Caribbean but neither the DVD or hard drive space to do so? YouTube is partnering with Disney to put hundreds of titles on its semi-new rental service, YouTube.com/movies. Though Warner Bros., Sony and Universal were on board with the service when it launched in May, Disney’s addition is the first major once since and means a massive amount of affordable family films just appeared at your fingertips. There’s more after the jump. Read More »
Posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011 by Russ Fischer
Things are heating up in the streaming video space. All the major companies with a stake in digital content streaming are trying to find new revenue streams, and new ways to compete for audiences as Netflix voraciously increases the amount of content it offers, especially with respect to television series.
Three of the major streaming players — Netflix, Hulu and YouTube — have made new deals to provide content to users, and a fourth company, Redbox, is raising prices after testing an increase in limited markets, but is also planning to launch a streaming service by the end of the year. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
Remember the news about Life in a Day, the YouTube movie that Ridley Scott is producing with director Kevin Macdonald? (Not to be confused with Bruce McDonald, who also crowd-sourced footage for his Broken Social Scene project This Film is Broken.)
Well, the movie is already into post-production, but that’s just because all the normal production work was done by people who submitted clips from footage shot on July 24, the day the film is designed to encapsulate. How many clips? Eighty thousand, in 45 languages from 197 different countries. How do you assemble that? Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
We’ve got a pair of vaguely conjoined stories about trouble in movie sales. Just as Blockbuster is looking at options to keep its business viable and thriving, another movie rental chain is dying: Movie Gallery will close all stores in the US and liquidate all holdings. Meanwhile, over on the Internet, YouTube launched a movie rental service, and no one seems to have noticed. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 by David Chen
In this week’s episode of the /Filmcast, David Chen, Devindra Hardawar, and Adam Quigley discuss the art of the new Wall Street teaser, reflect on the business of indie cinema, and offer some of their favorite films and disappointments from Sundance 2010. Special guest Steve Weintraub (AKA Frosty) from Collider joins us this evening.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Join us next week on Monday night at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST at Slashfilm’s live page as we review From Paris with Love.
Download or Play Now in your Browser:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Subscribe to the /Filmcast:
Posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 by Devindra Hardawar
We knew that video rentals were coming to YouTube at some point. Back in September, we reported that YouTube was chatting with movie studios about renting films. Now it seems they’re going to dabble in renting some independent films before they move on to big studio fair. On their blog today, YouTube announced that they will be making five Sundance 2009 and 2010 films films available for rent from this Friday until Sunday, January 31.
The films include the much-praised doc The Cove, One Too Many Mornings, Homewrecker, Children of Invention, and Bass Ackwards. YouTube also mentioned that rental videos from industries like health and education, as well as more independent films, will be made available in the coming weeks.
Posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 by David Chen
In this week’s /Filmcast, Dave Chen, Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley reflect on the prospect of a fifth Rambo film, assess the merits of Mike Judge’s Extract and Robert Siegel’s Big Fan, and try to dissect the Boondock Saints phenomenon. Special guest Jordan Hoffman joins us from UGO Movieblog.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Join us next Monday at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST at Slashfilm’s live page as we review Shane Acker’s 9.
Download or Play Now in your Browser:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Subscribe to the /Filmcast:
Posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 by David Chen
According to The Wall Street Journal, Youtube is in discussions with major movie studios about the possibility of renting movies through its online streaming video service. Youtube’s capacity to be a profitable enterprise has long been a source of much debate. With this success of services like Hulu, which is currently able to command top dollar for its ads, Youtube is clearly trying to expand its monetization options by exploring premium content. The WSJ story is hazy on the details, since talks are still ongoing and could easily fall apart, but hit the jump for what we do know.
