Turner to Launch Movie-Streaming Subscription Service With 1,000-Plus Titles

Image: Bruce and Martha Karsh

Turner this fall will launch its first over-the-top subscription-video service, FilmStruck, marking another move by the TV programmer to extend its business into the digital realm.

FilmStruck, designed for film buffs with a rotating selection of more than 1,000 art-house and indie titles, is being developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies in collaboration with the Criterion Collection.

Movies on the ad-free service are set to include “Seven Samurai,” the Beatle’s “A Hard Day’s Night,” “A Room With A View,” “Blood Simple,” “My Life As A Dog,” the original “Mad Max,” “Breaker Morant” and “The Player.”

Turner is still determining pricing for FilmStruck, but it will be “competitively priced to other streaming movie services,” says a rep.

FilmStruck will be the new exclusive streaming home for the Criterion Collection, which will include the Criterion Channel, a new premium service programmed and curated by the Criterion team. Previously, Hulu has had exclusive streaming rights to Criterion’s library since 2011.

The FilmStruck library will carry films from indie studios including Janus Films, Flicker Alley, Icarus, Kino, Milestone and Zeitgeist, along with movies from Warner Bros. and other major studios. The service will be similar to TCM’s cable programming, offering bonus content and commentary for various films. The film selections will include rotating access to more than 1,000 titles from the Janus Films library, many of which are unavailable on DVD or elsewhere, according to Criterion Collection president Peter Becker. …

… read on at variety.com

Originally posted by Todd Spangler at Variety
26th April 2016

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