BT brings films to YouView on the same day as the cinema release
Posh cinema chain Curzon have signed a deal with BT to bring their Curzon On-Demand service to YouView and BT TV customers – showing films on the same day that they are released into cinemas.
According to BT, the first major film release following the deal on October 25th is The Selfish Giant – a film about a character who I presume was too self-centred to help the Avengers save New York.
Here’s how BT describe the film: “directed by Clio Barnard, the film is a contemporary fable about two teenage boys who get caught up in the world of copper theft.”
So don’t expect any popcorn blockbuster type films here – this is all serious cinema. This does mean though that the films on the service are likely to be actually good and critically acclaimed, rather than the waste of bandwidth that was Transformers 3.
As you might expect – pricing comes at a premium with same-day cinema releases costing a tenner each – but this price comes down if to a more reasonable £4 for HD and £3.50 for HD for films that have been released on DVD.
Here’s a run-down of the other films that’ll be joining the service soon – complete with the BT-provided descriptions:
- What Maisie Knew – a contemporary adaptation of the Henry James novel set in New York, starring Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan and Alexander Skarsgard, with a sensational central performance from six-year-old Onata Aprile as Maisie.
- Mister John – a critically acclaimed Singapore-set Irish psycho-thriller, starring Aidan Gillen of Game of Thrones and The Wire.
- The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology – philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek takes an in-depth look at cinema from a psychoanalytic perspective. The films to come under the microscope include Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange and Taxi Driver.
- The Selfish Giant – an emotional tour-de-force of British cinema by award winning writer-director Clio Barnard, which left the critics stunned and exhilarated at the Cannes Film Festival – October 25.
- Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s – an upbeat and entertaining documentary about New York’s most iconic department store featuring Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani, Stefano Gabbana, Nicole Richie, Joan Rivers and Mary-Kate Olsen – December 6.
- Fill The Void – a gripping drama from first-time director, Rama Burshtein, telling the story of a young Hasidic Jewish woman pressured into an arranged levirate marriage with a widower – December 13.
Here’s hoping we see the Curzon launch on other platforms soon.
