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.