Facebook Launches Movie Rental Service With Warner Bros.; First Up - 'The Dark Knight'
by Richard Sharp
This is the type of thing the “Like” button was designed for.
Warner Bros. announced today that it will start “testing an offering of selected movies for purchase or rental through Warner Bros. Entertainment’s Facebook movie pages. Consumers will be able to use Facebook Credits to easily buy or rent a title, all while staying connected to Facebook.”
The first film the studio will be offering through Facebook is the Christopher Nolan-directed Batman film “The Dark Knight.” In order to watch the video, users will have to purchase 30 Facebook credits (for $3).
According to the WB release, “fans will have full control over the film while watching it through their Facebook account for up to 48 hours from purchase. They can choose to watch it in full screen, pause the movie, and resume playing it when they log back into Facebook.”
Facebook account holders can watch “The Dark Knight” through the social networking site starting now at the film’s FB page.
The move by Facebook to start selling movie rentals puts them in direct competition with an increasingly crowded field, including Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. According to CNN Money, Facebook typically takes 30% of the revenue for all Facebook credits purchases.
Will movie rentals be popular with the notoriously fickle Facebook audience? No matter how it all turns out, these are exciting times to be watching online.