Feature films coming to YouTube

YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios possibly as early as next month, according to an executive with a major entertainment company, reports News.com.

For months, Google, YouTube's parent company, has been talking to the major film companies about launching an ad-supported, streaming movie service.

There's skepticism in some circles about whether enough ads can be placed into a streaming movie to make it profitable without also overloading viewers with commercials.

... By choosing this route, YouTube must go head-to-head against the Web's reigning king of streaming long-form video: Hulu.

Michael Moore plans Net-only film premiere

Filmmaker Michael Moore plans to premiere his latest documentary exclusively on the Internet for free, forgoing the traditional theatrical release.

Slacker Uprising, which documents Moore's 62-city tour through swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election to rally young voters, will be available for download for three weeks beginning September 23.

A DVD of the 97-minute film will be released on October 7 through Amazon and Netflix.

[via cnet news]

Hollywood May Let You Copy Movies, Sort Of

The New York Times Bits blog reports on how soon, consumers will be able download movies and write them to DVDs - but not easily.

“It has been a long painful process convincing getting the studios to accept that their content can be recorded on DVDs, using CSS, the same format they use now,” said Jim Taylor a senior vice president of Sonic Solutions, the maker of DVD writing software that has been pushing for the changes.

... As with every intersection between technology and Hollywood, there are more than a few catches. First of all, movies will have to be burned onto special DVDs, which will likely cost more than regular writable DVDs. That is because the disks will be preprinted with codes meant to prevent copying. And there is a royalty payment on the disks that will go to a group, led by Sonic, that helped develop the technology.

Moreover, you can’t use it to back up your existing DVDs. Nor can you use watch the downloaded version on your computer or on your portable video player.

So, like other forms of legal online movie distribution, it’s a safe bet that downloading to DVDs will take off slowly. Still every last bit of legal craziness that can be removed will make it easier for people to design the sort of services that people might eventually want to use."

Movie Pol enables Movies to Premiere Online

Her MoviePol site, which launches at the end of the summer, is a direct response to frustration at trying to battle past the blockbusters to get her films shown in US cinemas. [via The Guardian]

"Run "virtually" between Los Angeles, London, Toronto and her office in the south of France, MoviePol hopes to be every film fan's local art house cinema when it launches. Its first films were selected by critics as deserving of a wider showing than they got.

... The spread of broadband and the advent of piracy-protected video playing systems is encouraging growing numbers of stymied producers and distributors to bypass cinemas and, as they put it, "democratise" the system.

... Most of those involved admit it is early days for the online release model and that if the experiments take off they will establish an additional medium to cinema, not a replacement.

Still, watching films online should no longer be seen as the preserve of tech-savvy enthusiasts, says Andrew Wilding at Vividas, the video streaming specialist powering MoviePol: "People now are very comfortable with the digital world," he says. "It's not just the nerds who are watching it."

MTV premieres full length film on mobile phones

MTV is taking full-length movies to the mobile screen, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

"The network said Monday that "Super Sweet 16: The Movie" -- an extension of the MTV series "My Super Sweet 16" -- will premiere on mobile television service Verizon V Cast TV, marking the first time an MTV feature-length film has debuted on the wireless service before running on air.

... Inspired by the series, "Super Sweet 16: The Movie" chronicles the story of two best friends trying to outdo each other as they both plan their long-awaited sweet 16 party."

Michael Moore's "Sicko" leaked online

According to /film, Michael Moore's latest film , Sicko, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is launching everywhere June 29, has been leaked online.