Online ticketing platform BookMyShow has rolled out a video-on-demand program ‘BookMyShow Stream’, where users can rent or buy movies. BookMyShow said it has over 600 titles and over 72,000 hours of content on the platform. For now, Wonder Woman 1984, Tenet and The Craft: Legacy are among the movies currently streaming on the platform. Content will also be exclusive to the platform, and prices vary across movies.
The platform lets users rent or buy films, and features content that did not release in Indian theatres, and has categories such as Premieres, Exclusives, World Cinema, Missed in Theatres, Festival Favourites and dedicated Bundles.
BookMyShow says options will be “extremely personalised” to the user based on their preferences, transactions and behaviour on BookMyShow.
“Starting today, BookMyShow Stream will be home to Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, Gal Gadot starrer Wonder Woman 1984 and horror fantasy The Craft: Legacy, giving Indian cinephiles an opportunity to catch these blockbusters that they missed in theatres. Besides these, films like Alone, Yes God Yes, The Peanut Butter Falcon, The Guilty, Les Miserables, Unhinged and acclaimed Russian sci-fi thriller Coma, from premium Independent studios will premiere exclusively on BookMyShow Stream,” BookMyShow said in a statement.
The company said that content will premiere on the platform every Friday.
It said that content will be made available through partnerships with production houses, including Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures. In India, it will be available from production houses such as Viacom18, Shemaroo and Rajshri Productions as well as regional content providers like Divo and Sillymonks.
“BookMyShow Stream will be one of the first Indian streaming platforms to host acquired content from Independent Film distributors like PictureWorks, Superfine Films, Impact Films, Kahwa Entertainment and VR films,” it said.
The company added that it will be including world cinema as well, and will include cinema from countries such as Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Slovakia and Netherlands.
“The content available on BookMyShow Stream is amongst the most celebrated films across key International Film Festivals including award-winning showcases at the Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, to name a few,” BookMyShow said.
Films are currently supported in HD, and will be available in 4K in the coming weeks.
Ashish Saksena, COO - Cinemas at BookMyShow said, “BookMyShow Stream’ is a natural extension of our cinemas business and respects the existing theatrical windows for content. It empowers users to pay only for the content that they watch - a prevalent trend in other global cinema markets, as yet untapped at scale in India. ‘BookMyShow Stream’ aims to inculcate global consumption trends by providing a highly curated avenue for handpicked cinema from across the world.”
Stream will be available for viewing on BookMyShow’s mobile app, website as also Apple TV, Android TV, Firestick, Chromecast and desktop browsers. BookMyShow Stream will allow users to experience features such as downloads, offline viewing and casting.
BookMyShow is looking at using existing behaviour to tailor content for its users, and said it gets 200 million customer visits per month and 5 billion page views. Prior to the coronavirus induced lockdown, it said it sold 200 million tickets annually. It has sold over 5 million tickets in January alone as theatres are opening up, it added.