With it’s latest move, Miramax may be leading the movie industry in Facebook integration. While other studios, including Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. may have beat it to the punch, Miramax’s latest venture includes far more titles and regions than we’ve seen before.
Some of the notable offerings from other studios include Paramount making all the Jackass movies available for rent, while Warner Bros. included a selection of about 6 films, including Dark Knight and Inception, available only to US residents. Universal’s first offering was the cult classic, The Big Lebowski.
The Miramax eXperience, which will be available later today for users in the US, UK and Turkey, with France and Germany slated to join that list at a later date, includes an offering of 20 movies for rent through Facebook. While US users can choose from 20 titles, UK and Turkey users can only choose from 10.
In addition to being able to rent movies on their computer, users will also be able to watch them on their iPad and on Google TV. Making the service available on different devices has been of paramount importance to Miramax, pun intended. Renting a movie will cost $3 (or 30 Facebook credits) and you can wait up to 30 days to watch the movie, but once you start to watch, the rental is active for 2 days.
Chicago, Cold Mountain, Good Will Hunting are included in the list, along with Pulp Fiction, which is launching to a US-only audience. This isn’t Miramax’s first online venture, with some deals already cemented with Amazon, Apple and Netflix and Hulu.
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The Miramax eXperience goes beyond movie rentals, and will also involve a game which will unlock content, that you wouldn’t otherwise get to see.
Miramax CEO Mike Lang explained the choice to focus on a Facebook offering, rather than using the company’s own site saying:
“We wanted to fish where the fish are. We could have created the most robust Miramax.com in the world and other than my family members, who would be there?”
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