"Brokeback" Mounts Revolution

Brokeback Mountain isn't done breaking ground.

On Tuesday, the Oscar-winning gay cowboy drama will help Hollywood embrace the brave new world, becoming the studios' first major title to debut as a download-to-own movie on the same day it's out on DVD.

While the move is a nod to the iTunes revolution, Brokeback will be available on Movielink.com, the online service jointly owned by MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros.

Additionally, Sony and Lions Gate announced a deal on Monday with CinemaNow.com, another video-on-demand service, that brings to the site more than 75 of their titles, including Saw II and Memoirs of a Geisha, which was released on DVD just last week.

Those movies and more--Zathura, Rent, The Legend of Zorro--went up Monday on CinemaNow, where the download-to-own price tag on new titles was $19.95. By comparison, the list price for the wide-screen DVD version of Zorro is about $30, though offline retailers such as Target are offering it for under $20.

At Movielink, Geisha, Peter Jackson's King Kong and Walk the Line were among the films available for purchase on Monday--the first time the site has allowed a user to build an online library from its titles.

With the exception of Kong (on sale for $19.99--about $5 more than the wide-screen DVD as sold on Amazon.com), Movielink's marquee titles were going for $26.99.

On both sites, older movies cost less than new ones; rental versions (allowing a user to download and watch a title for 24 hours) are even cheaper (typically $4.99 on Movielink and $3.99 on CinemaNow for new releases).

The concept of "electronic sell-through"--jargon for "you buy, you download, you keep"--has been on the table for years. Certainly, CinemaNow.com has been in the business of selling downloads for years. But it wasn't until Monday that the major studios came on board with their major releases.

The success that the iTunes store has had in selling downloads of hit TV shows such as Desperate Housewives was one factor that helped nudge talks along, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment executive Sean Carey acknowledged Monday. But Carey didn't see iTunes as the only factor.

"The general buildup for on-demand video content was there," Carey said.

With the buildup of the content has come the buildup of the conduit. Per a May 2005 Pew Internet Project study, 53 percent of online U.S. homes had high-speed connections, up from 35 percent in November 2003.

Both Movielink and CinemaNow require broadband connections, as well as P.C. systems. (Sorry, the programs aren't Mac compatible, and no, you can't download your movies to your iPod. You may, however, burn your Movielink purchases to DVD. CinemaNow currently doesn't allow for DVD burns.)

Movielink promises movies can be played within as little as two minutes of the start of a download. Mileage, however, may vary. On Monday, one King Kong download on a 256k cable modem was still some nine hours away from completion, some four hours after the download began. (This was said to be an exceptionally slow exception to the rule. And for what it's worth, CinemaNow recommends a connection of 300k or better.)

The digital revolution continues next week, with the dual DVD and download release of Jim Carrey's Fun with Dick and Jane, coming to both Movielink and CinemaNow.

"There seems to be speculation as to the death of the theatrical window," Sony's Carey said, "but we believe this is a way of expanding the home-entertainment business."