When Apple Computer Inc. begins selling Hollywood films online this week via its iTunes Store, Disney Studios’ films (classics for $9.99, new releases for $14.99 – in comparison to Amazon’s Unbox, which offers films at costs ranging from $8 to $20) will be the only films offered initially according to a report in Daily Variety, UPI reports.
“Daily Variety said Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs’ unwillingness to price the downloadable videos as high as movie studios would have liked ultimately resulted in Disney being the only studio signed on to offer its wares on iTunes beginning Tuesday,” UPI reports.
Daily Variety reported that if the Apple-Disney feature film partnership proves profitable other major studios likely will follow in Disney’s footsteps.
Full article here.
Related articles:
Laying odds on potential Steve Jobs’ Apple ‘Showtime’ event announcements – September 11, 2006
Speculation ramps up ahead of Apple Computer’s ‘It’s Showtime’ event – September 06, 2006
Report: Apple to unveil movie service with full-length Disney features on September 12th – September 06, 2006
It’s Showtime: Apple invites media to special event in San Francisco on September 12th – September 05, 2006
Lions Gate CEO slips, says films coming to iTunes – August 17, 2006
Does “Disney Studios” include all the other “studios” that Disney (the corporation) owns?
Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Miramax Films
and of course
Pixar
If so, that’s a sizable chunk of “Hollywood.”
MIRIMAX- huge, because= same dempographic users that propelled ipod (i.e., my kids)
Hurray! VHS-quality Disney films on my HDTV-quality Macbook Pro! And only $14.99! Can’t wait!
Yup. Same dempographics.
At&T to launch movie service.
Hm… ganging up a lilbit?
The movies will be high-definition. And no, the files will not be too large to reasonably download. They will be using an amazing new compression algorithm. You’ll see – you naysayers.
(I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop myself. I know I swore this off, and, honestly people, I HAVE TRIED, but…)
That’s funny. I’m watching GW on MSNBC.
He used the word “despotism”.
1. The irony is irresistable!!!!
2. Did he know that word, (or, part 2) how many times did he have to practice saying that word?
PLEASE GOD, HELP ME. HELP! I AM NOT A TROLL. THE OTHER TROLLS SUCK ME IN WITH THIER STUPIDITY! (God, just read the posts here. See what I mean? In fact, a few days ago, some of them said I was a FREAK! Now, You, Lord, know me well. But isn’t it funny? Later several will post like this… “this guy is a nut” “see, liberal freaks” “bla” “president bush is keeping us safe” “bla bla” “Gw is a regular guy, I know, I drink PBR”, ad infinitum”
god- what’s in thier minds? “lib” “commie” “bla bla”
Hey, GOD, speaking as a REGISTERED INDEPENDENT (since both USA pol. parties, as your children, are equal opportunity whores, accepting the same big pac money from big-biz);
I always wonder, are YOU inclined toward MAC or PC?
(I mean it, Lord, seriously, send a telepathic message to all the respondents/contributors on this impartial and unbiased board. Ask them to be candid.)
“[…] which offers films at costs ranging from $8 to $20 […]”
Prices range from $4 to $36.
Come on, “journalists.” It isn’t that difficult to do this research.
Disney AND
“Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Miramax Films
and of course
Pixar”
wowee , bring it on
fuck amazon !
In an attempt to get things BACK ON TOPIC (you all know who you are)…
I had a thought about what would drive people to purchase movies from Apple in droves and totally fsck the other studios, making them BEG the Steve to let them play in his sandbox:
Disney allows Apple to release movies BEFORE they are released on DVD, similar to what they have done a couple of time with music tracks. Imagine being able to have a copy of the recent Pirates movies a week or two before it can be bought with packaging. If the quality were good enough, people would probably be willing to forgo the packaging itself and pay an “early-adopter” fee of $14.99 just for the bragging rights. The media would be all over this and it would be seen as yet another Apple coup in Hollywood. After all, Walmart and Blockbuster would join Ballmer in throwing chairs because of the money they would start losing when people didn’t buy or rent DVDs from them and they couldn’t do anything about it for a couple of weeks. “Hey Walmart! Wanna play dirty? I’ll show you dirty…”
I’ll bet Steve has some other plan like this or similar in mid so this doesn’t come off looking weak and like he lost against the studios.
MW: account, as in “Apple better buy another huge data center just to keep up with the accounting records from it’s media income”
why should the films be in hi-def ?
they could use standard dvd sd and just rescale via os-x and it’s built in upscalers
less space used and still good quality
don’t beleive me ?
try blowing up a top quality well mastered dvd on a 42″ plasma – not that bad at all , eh ?
Hi-Def films, even with mucho compression, would still be HUGE files and take lots of time to download. What happens when your connection is dropped? Do you start the download over?
Anyway, I’ve been holding out for a Full Resolution 1080p HDTV of reasonable size. Sony, Sharp and Samsung have 40″ LCD HDTVs (good size for a small apartment) have recently released some, with Sharp offering a 37″. If Apple manages to offer full resolution movies it could be a BIG thing! And if a new iPod is capable of displaying them in Full-Res on a TV, it could possibly be a bigger thing than the audio iPod.
Can’t wait to find out the scoop.
I wonder if the presentation will be streamed to the web by any chance?
MDN Magic Word: ATTACK. SOmehow it’s fitting!
Look, you freaks
If Apple’s business model is good enough, then people should only be buying the films they want to buy… because they want to buy them on I-Tunes.
Buying 5 copies of The Little Mermaid, just because you want Apple to beat Amazon just confirms the fact that Apple is only propped up by a minority of die-hard fanatics.
Hell, this kind of behaviour makes their 3%-4% market share on PCs look more like 1.5%-2%…With every mac owner owning 2 macs, just because they want Apple to exceed.
Am I wrong?
yup
now piss off back to the pc forum you came from , troll
Walden Media also works in with Disney…
All those kiddies can watch the chronicles of Narnia while waiting for the big studios to tow the line, which won’t be long, who’s going to pay 20 bucks for a flick when itunes store will charge way less than that.
Hey Billy,
yes you are, because if you inspire that kind of enthusiasm in people, even if you only reach a small crowd, that also makes you a valid player in the market.
Anyways, everybody votes with their money. If I choose to download a movie on iTunes every day, even if I don’t need it, just because I like it so much, that’s my private waste of money! And I am entitled to it!
And it might help, if the press reports that Apple beat Amazon 3:1 in the christmas season, the other studios are gonna come in.
flappo
I’m not a troll, by any means.
I’m sitting here checking the web every 5-10 minutes waiting for some new rumours on todays announcement. Praying for a 50 inch plasma, with built in Mac OS… So I can guy and spend a few thousand pounds at the Apple store.
I’m just a typical consumer that wants to buy a gadget that is both cool, and practical and groundbreaking.
Now sanctioning mutliple purchases of videos from Itunes…just to help the store succeed does not seem objective from my perspective. Indeed I would go so far as to call it freakish behaiour (as I did in my earlier post)
But calling me a troll is innacurate, and convenient.
It seems possible that Apple would also release one or more new cinema displays to coincide with the home theater theme. Consider the recent price drop in current cinema displays and the introduction of a 24-inch display for the new iMac.
Apple may replace the 17-inch display with a 20-inch display, introduce a stand-alone 24-inch display to replace the former 23-inch display, and maybe increase the size of the largest cinema display to, gulp, 40 inches.
The day that Steve starts pushing his own political views over his products, is the day I’ll switch to Linux.
And that will never happen. He’s too wise to mix his personal politics with his business.
Any comments?
This just means that we ALL have to band together and buy these movies, even if we feel simply “Ehh” about them. The more successful they are, the quicker the rest of the studios will get on board. Just like it was with TV Shows.
I personally will be buying several of them. I don’t think I’ll watch them myself, but I’m sure my g/f’s son, my niece, and any of my friends kids will be happy to watch them whenever the situation presents itself.
iScott:
Please purchase a couple of films for me, too, please. I’ll post a list of the films I want. Since you don’t plan to watch them, let me benefit from your superfluity, profligacy, and generosity. Thank you.
Firstly, the ‘on-topic’ stuff…
If Hollywood waits to see how Disney (inc. Touchstone, Pixar, Hollywood Films, Miramax, Dimension) fairs, I’m guessing that it’s no different to the fact that Disney/ABC was the initial founding content partner for the video element of iTMS.
Fast forward 12 months, and now – in the US at least – it’s difficult to see any network/channel that doesn’t have some sort of content available on iTMS.
You have to remember that some Hollywood types are relatively clueless and there is the old story (possibly apocryphal) about a Hollywood exec asking his assistant to go and film some Internet so that he could see what all the fuss was about.
Now, the mildly ‘off-topic’ stuff…
According to a news report I’ve just watched, Napster are going to start giving MP3/WMA players away based on the logic that subscription services would work if the whole commercial model was more like the cellphone market where the handsets are heavily subsidised and all the income is made from call plans and calls themselves.
Now, the completely ‘off-topic’ stuff…
I don’t think anybody came out of “The Path To 9/11” looking like rocket scientists. The Clinton administration appear to have been actively committed to the rule of international law (which is noble, but questionable when you’re talking about the assassination of a rabid dog like bin Laden who’s taken refuge in a failed state with no rule of law), but were portrayed as being quite passive about forming or developing a concerted international alliance to fight the threat of Al Qua’ida. The Bush administration were portrayed as being initially concerned with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. There also appeared to be a portrayal of ‘turf wars’ between the various government agencies under both administrations and a complacent ‘group think’ mentality at various management levels.
What’s actually missing from the programme is a verbatim reconstruction of the 9/11 Commission with the testimony from the key witnesses being framed in the context of what actually happened.
iTunes music store is being updated!
check it out! WOO HOO!
I would love for Disney to open the vault. I grew up on the Disney sunday night movies, and would love to have the chance to watch them again. And it makes business sense to release the not-so-popular movies digitally – save production costs.
Hey, do you think the iTMS will have special features? Ooh, maybe they would be ready to burn, Video_TS anyone? (and a lower quality one for the iPod), Ok, I know there isn’t a snowball’s chance of the studios allowing Video_TS downloads
Good morning America,
Does anybody know when Europe is going to enjoy these movie downloads?
Am I wrong when I say that this is never mentionned or did I miss something??
The event today will also be broadcasted to the UK so they might be part of this but I live in Holland….
Any knowledge about this overthere?