14 DAY TRIAL // Warner Brothers is expanding its experiment of renting movies on Facebook. It looks like the movie studio was pleased with the results of the initial test, in which it enabled users to watch the Dark Knight on Facebook for 30 credits, or at least they weren't so disappointing to discourage it from moving forward with the next step.
With the second stage of the experiment, Warner Brothers is introducing five more movies, over a wider spectrum of categories, from Harry Potter to Inception to Yogi Bear.
"We’re pleased to expand our test with a variety of titles that will appeal to a broad audience," Thomas Gewecke, President of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, said.
"These titles have substantial followings on Facebook. The Fan Pages for 'Harry Potter' and 'Inception' alone are two of the most popular and active communities on the site," he added.
For now, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," "Inception," "Life as We Know It" and "Yogi Bear" are available for digital renting.
Warner Brothers hasn't said anything about how well, or not, the first test went. But with just one title it would probably be hard to make any general assumptions, which is why Warner is moving forward.
Unless the initial results were disastrous, this second stage was pretty much a given and probably future ones as well. Then again, old media companies are not exactly known to behave rationally, especially when it comes to digital mediums.
The new movies rent for 40 credits, or $4, and 30 credits for the Harry Potter ones. As before, fans can visit the Facebook page of the respective movie and hit Watch Now. They have 48 hours to watch it in full and they can pause at any time. Apparently, other studios may be looking to start offering their titles via Facebook as well.