Movies Anywhere launches with backing of five studios

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

As using digital services to buy and rent movies becomes the standard for more and more people, we have all been faced with the stressful choice as to which service to use. There’s iTunes, Vudu, Amazon and Google, but which to choose. You have to pick just one to house your precious movie library because jumping around services means an incomplete movie collection, and if it’s incomplete, you’re incomplete. Now you no longer have to worry, as a new service called Movies Anywhere has just launched and has the backing of the biggest studios in the world.

The new service, which was teased very recently and then went live today, allows users to connect accounts from Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu, effectively combining your digital libraries into one platform. This includes a library of movies from five major studios, including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. Movies Anywhere is a Disney-owned entity that "operates independently with input from an advisory committee with members from each of the participating studios."

This allows for a seamless viewing experience that users can access using the Movies Anywhere app, and can be used on Amazon Fire devices; Android devices and Android TV; Apple TV; Chromecast; iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and; Roku devices. Karin Gilford, the general manager of Movies Anywhere, had this to say on the exciting new platform:

Movies Anywhere is a massive step forward for the consumer digital media experience, bringing the incredible film libraries of five studios together in a virtual one-stop movie-watching shop. Movies Anywhere means that consumers never have to remember where they purchased a film or which device they can watch it on, because all of their eligible movies will be centralized within their Movies Anywhere library and available across platforms through the Movie Anywhere app and website and also available at their connected digital retailers. And as Movies Anywhere continues to add more studios, retailers and platforms, the entertainment possibilities are endless.

Before this, there was Disney Movies Anywhere, which allowed users to connect various digital profiles and share their Disney purchases across other formats. There was also something similar with the UltraViolet service, but word is studios are abandoning UV for the Disney model because the tech is better. Like Netflix, Hulu or other streaming services, each master account on Movies Anywhere can allow up to five subaccounts, which can be personalized, and allow multiple users to watch the same thing at the same time.

Users now have access to a library of over 7,300 movies, and to entice people to start using Movies Anywhere users are being offered free movies for connecting their profiles. For the first connection people will get copies of 2016’s GHOSTBUSTERS and ICE AGE (yay?) and for the second connection, they will get BIG HERO 6, JASON BOURNE and THE LEGO MOVIE (better?). As you will notice, each studio put up one movie to offer.

I have personally faced the digital service dilemma, at one point using iTunes and then switching over to Vudu (it allowed me to digitize my Blu-ray library and was available on more devices, like Roku and Android). But I still have some movies on iTunes, so being able to merge it all together is very exciting. I tried doing it today, but it said there was a bug with Vudu connections that will be fixed later today, so I’ll just have to contain myself till then. What a world we live in!

You can check out the service at their website and see what all the fuss is about.