Thu 25 Oct 2007
The straight-to-dvd market better watch out, Edward Burns is coming for you. Burns’s new film ‘Purple Violets’ is having no luck finding a distributor so the independent film is going straight to iTunes. The movie will be available in November and will join other films from Disney, MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount. Only Disney currently releases new films through iTunes. Whether or not ‘Purple Violet’ finds success this could lead to a boost in independent films being offered through iTunes.
If Apple is able to increase its stake in the online movie business there could be the potential to launch a new program, or a re-branded version of iTunes. This new edition could focus on television shows, movies, and music videos, but don’t look for an iFilm application anytime soon as iTunes has single handedly changed the music industry. For now the movies and tv shows sold via iTunes are a minor attraction to the program and creating two seperate programs would defeat the ease of iTunes one stop shopping, which has been a key factor it its success. While access to independent films might get easier, until the other major studios team up with Apple we won’t be seeing any major changes to the iTunes store.