Movies Anywhere Expands Digital Retailer Support With New Partner FandangoNOW

Last October, Disney announced that its "Disney Movies Anywhere" service would be expanding to become simply "Movies Anywhere," allowing customers to collect all of their digital films into one centralized location. Previously, the digital retailers supporting the service were iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, VUDU, and Google Play, but today the latest retailer has joined: FandangoNOW.

FandangoNOW is the ticketing service company's video on-demand service, and now users who stream and purchase films on FandangoNOW will see their content piped to Movies Anywhere. This means that when using the Movies Anywhere app and website, FandangoNOW customers can access eligible digital movies from studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios (encompassing Disney, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm), Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Pictures (including DreamWorks and Illumination Entertainment), and Warner Bros.

Once a FandangoNOW account is connected to Movies Anywhere, users can watch their redeemed digital films on multiple supported devices with Movies Anywhere apps, including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, Amazon Fire devices, Android and Android TV, Chromecast, Roku, and on Mac and PC. According to Fandango CMO Adam Rockmore, a major advantage of FandangoNOW is having "one of the industry's largest collections of 4K Ultra HD movies," but as of yet the service doesn't have an app for Apple TV.

“At Fandango, we aim to deliver the best movie experience anytime and anywhere, throughout a movie’s entire life cycle — from theatrical to home entertainment and beyond,” said Fandango CMO, Adam Rockmore. “Since FandangoNOW’s launch in 2016, we’ve been hyper-focused on innovation, including building one of the industry’s largest collections of 4K Ultra HD movies and broadening our distribution on a wide variety of connected devices. Now, through our new relationship with Movies Anywhere, FandangoNOW customers will gain simple, streamlined access to their digital movies from Hollywood’s major film studios.”

Since its launch late last year, Disney stated that Movies Anywhere now provides access to a library of nearly 7,500 digital movies, and it has been used to store over 100 million movies to date. In addition to purchases made on connected digital retailers' stores, Movies Anywhere lets customers redeem digital codes that they find included in physical Blu-ray and DVD disc cases.

In celebration of the launch, FandangoNOW is offering two free films -- Ghostbusters (2017) and Ice Age -- when FandangoNOW is the first account a user connects to Movies Anywhere. This is part of Movie Anywhere's "5 Movies on Us" promotion, where the fist digital retailer linked nets you the previously mentioned films, and the second retailer linked provides you with an additional three free films: Big Hero 6, The LEGO Movie, and Jason Bourne.

Disney is also using the announcement as a promotion for today's digital release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, adding in a few new Star Wars themed profile picture options to the service. On the iTunes store on Apple TV, Disney is still the only major Hollywood studio not supporting 4K. It's believed that price is the reason behind the lack of support, because Apple is adamant about keeping 4K films equal to HD prices at $19.99, while Disney sells its films in 4K on apps like VUDU at a higher price of $24.99.

Tags: Disney, Fandango, Movies Anywhere

Top Rated Comments

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MysteryMii215

12 months ago

I feel like this is the final nail in the coffin for UltraViolet (since VUDU and FandangoNOW are the last two major services that support UltraViolet). Now all we need is for Paramount and Lionsgate to come on board (Oh, and for Disney to begin offering 4K HDR content on iTunes).

Rating: 5 Votes

kylew1212

12 months ago

Like MysteryMii215 said, nowif we could just get Paramount and Lionsgate, then Disney 4k...

I'd like to see a this same type service with TV shows. Ideally instead of movies anywhere this could become media anywhere and have TV shows sync'ed cross provider too.

Rating: 3 Votes

eNJayBe

12 months ago

Would love this service to expand to Canada

I’m waiting for support in the UK

Rating: 3 Votes

kylew1212

12 months ago

Films from indie studios are usually distributed on home video by one of the bigger studios (Example: A24's home video distribution is handled by Lionsgate).
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iTunes already upgrades your movies to 4K for free.

iTunes films are apparently only upgraded to 4K for free if they were purchased from iTunes or an iTunes code was redeemed. There's been a lot of talk about this over in the Apple TV forum.

Rating: 2 Votes

cknibbs

12 months ago

Would love this service to expand to Canada

Rating: 1 Votes

quietstormSD

12 months ago

I love this service. No more chained to a specific ecosystem when buying movies!

Rating: 1 Votes

kylew1212

12 months ago

Amen to both of those!

I can appreciate that every studio has their own idea of 'how things should be', but at the end of the day they make a product they want to sell... and we [may or may not] want to buy. Making it super-easy to buy and use that product will do nothing but increase sales. Customers hate hard.

As for the TV, I don't buy a lot (and indeed don't even watch television shows on a regular basis) but do have copies of some that I consider classics worth watching. M*A*S*H, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, All in The Family, and others. Some are available digitally but most are not. If I *could* buy them and link through Movies (Media) Anywhere... that would make me far more likely to acquire more.

I don't have that many TV shows either, but if an equivalent service to Movies Anywhere were available to TV shows I would buy more. As it stands I have some TV shows on Google Play and some on iTunes.
I have basically stopped buying TV Shows now. However since Movies Anywhere I have purchased a significant number of new movies.

Great 5 new movies now. Let me know when linking amazon or others results in free movies.

Initially if you linked any 2 providers you got 5 movies for free. I believe this offer still stands. I linked Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play and got all 5 for free last year.

Rating: 1 Votes

kylew1212

12 months ago

Just know that when you do that, you won't be getting 4K versions anywhere.

You may be better off waiting for your favorite movies to be on sale in iTunes, or a 4K sale in Vudu.

Even if you 'don't care' about 4K right now, its good to future-proof so you don't have to pay for the same movie again for a 3rd time down the road.

I am hoping that Vudu or iTunes will launch a service to upgrade your movie to 4k for a reduced price. Vudu has a disc to digital service where SD movies can be upgraded to HD so they should offer an HD to UHD service too.

Rating: 1 Votes

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