Movie fans have long known there’s nothing like the big screen experience—now, if rental chain Blockbuster has its way, a whole new generation will get to know and love the small screen experience of watching movies on mobile phones: the company today announced a partnership with phone maker Motorola to feature an exclusive Blockbuster OnDemand application on selected next-generation mobile phones, letting users have on-the-fly access to Blockbuster’s OnDemand mobile library.
“People are increasingly relying on their mobile phones to stay connected to the things they love the most—including their favorite movies and TV shows,” said Blockbuster’s senior VP of digital entertainment Kevin Lewis, in a statement. “The integration of our Blockbuster OnDemand service into Motorola’s mobile phones will provide access to thousands of movies from the moment someone initiates their service.”
The companies have released almost no details on the plan; among the unknowns are when the service might launch, how much it will cost, and what devices will support the On-Demand application. BlockBuster does say that the move is part of a broader digital strategy to enable customers to use the BlockBuster OnDemand application across multiple platforms, including PCs, portable media players, Blu-ray players, Web-connected TVs, set-top boxes, and more.
Blockbuster once dominated the movie rental market, but in recent years has been struggling to compete with Netflix, whose movies-by-mail (and now by-Internet) rental business bypassed Blockbuster’s pricey chain of retail outlets. Motorola has also been struggling to remain relevant in the mobile phone business, canceling plans to spin off its money-losing mobile phone division and consolidating its mobile efforts around Google’s Android platform.
