Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

movie-studios posts

Filed under: Internet, Video

3 movie studios to launch subscription based VOD web site

Epix.com
MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate are banding together to form a new TV channel called epix that will show films from each studio as soon as 9 months after the theatrical release. There's just one catch: No cable or satellite companies have agreed to carry the channel just yet.

But here's where things get interesting. The three studios, which are working together under the name Studio 3 Networks, plan to launch a subscription based web site that will stream on-demand movies starting in May. At launch, movies including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Iron Man, Pink Panther 2, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail will be available.

In other words, the new epix web site will be a lot like Hulu, except the films will be more current and viewers will have to pay to watch them. So umm, it won't be that much like Hulu at all. But it does raise an interesting question - if Studio 3 Networks doesn't manage to sign a broadcast carriage, could the group still make money on a subscription based web site? Sure, people are used to getting online video for free, but personally I'd rather pay a nominal monthly fee to watch on-demand movies from a site like epix than pay an arm and a leg to subscribe to a cable channel on top of a monthly cable bill. Or at least, I would if epix had films from more than three studios.

In related news, while looking for any sort of publicity photos of epix, I discovered that epix.com, epix.net, and epix.tv among other web domains are already registered. So it's not clear exactly what the URL of the new page will be.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Livescribe Store
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio