Online Movie Downloads - Free Trailers

Movies for download on itunes? This reported by Variety, the Hollywood rag. Apple is in negotiations with most of the major movie studios to add movie content to their online store. This would be the next logical step, since they now offer, music, music videos, and primetime TV shows.

This should be of no surprise to you that Apple is in talks with the major studios to offer movies in their itunes store.

Retuers states” Citing unnamed sources, Variety said iTunes might begin offering film downloads by the end of 2006, but currently a price on iTunes is a sticking point in negotiations.”

This should come as no surprise as well. Just check out the price points on movielink and Cinemanow.com. They charge more for less of a product. You get the feeling the only reason these two sites have movies available is so the Hollywood studios can avoid an investigation by the Department of Justice.

Steve Jobs of Apple wants a flat fee of $9.99 per movie and the Studios want a varying pricing base on movie title. With some as high as $19.99! Again look at Movielink or Cinemanow and see how varying pricing can confuse the customer. Jobs needs to hold his ground on this point as it’s the foundation for a successful site.

Time line for this new project is end of 2006. Just in time for the holidays and new ipods that are sure to hit the stores right in time for the Christmas rush.

‘Cars’ takes first in the box office with $31.2 million in its second weekend. It beat out ‘Nacho Libre’, a Jack Black movie about a cook in a Mexican orphanage who takes up wrestling to help raise money for better food for the kids. Has a very ‘School house” rock feel to it.

Third place was ‘Fast and the Furious’, with $24.1 million. This is well below the first two racing movies. I would say this is due to the fact that they had no real star power pushing this movie. They relied on a Franchise name and slick racing term, drifting. The original ‘Fast and the Furious’ made $40 million in its opening weekend and number two did $50 million in its first weekend. They both had big stars the 13- 25 year old crowed loved, who got out and pushed the movie hard. I think we can call this franchise done.

Yahoo movies reports things are looking up for Hollywood; “Hollywood’s overall business rose for the fifth-straight weekend. The top 12 movies took in $139.1 million, up 7 percent from the same weekend last year, when “Batman Begins” opened with $48.7 million.”

Here is the list of this weekend’s numbers:
1. “Cars,” $31.2 million.
2. “Nacho Libre,” $27.5 million.
3. “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” $24.1 million.
4. “The Lake House,” $13.7 million.
5. “The Break-Up,” $9.5 million.
6. “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties,” $7.2 million.
7. “X-Men: The Last Stand,” $7.15 million.
8. “The Omen” $5.35 million.
9. “The Da Vinci Code,” $5 million.
10. “Over the Hedge,” $4.05 million.

The big attraction next weekend is the long awaited ‘Superman Returns’. More on this in a couple of days.