Thursday, April 26, 2012

Rent thousands of full-length Aussie and global films on Google Play and YouTube

Australia has a long and rich history of cinema, with one of the world’s first studios, the Limelight Department, opening in Melbourne in 1897. Flash forward a century, and Australia is an indispensible part of the global film industry, represented by world famous directors such as Baz Luhrmann and Peter Weir as well as an almost endless list of actors, such as Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman.

This great tradition makes us excited to announce today that we have launched Movies on Google Play (play.google.com/movies) and a brand new Movies page on YouTube for Australia (youtube.com.au/movies), where you can rent thousands of films from both Hollywood and local Aussie studios. You can see films from The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, NBCUniversal, Village Roadshow Pictures and Lionsgate, as well as from local distributors such as Roadshow Films, Icon Film Distribution, Madman Entertainment, Hopscotch and Transmission Films.

Sit back and watch recent releases such as Oscar-award winning Midnight in Paris, The Help, Moneyball, Tower Heist and The Iron Lady as well as picks from a big library of all-time classics such as Toy Story 3 and The Bourne Ultimatum. If you are feeling in the mood for something local, check out break-out hits like 2011 release Snowtown or other Australian classics such as Bra Boys and Chopper.

On the web, you can rent and watch movies from Google Play and on YouTube. On Android phones and tablets, you can rent films from the Google Play store app and start watching them instantly on the Google Play Movies app. Movies can also be downloaded to the device so they’re available for viewing during the rental period without an internet connection. And if you are signed in using your Google Account, you can watch the same movies across both Google Play and YouTube.

Movies are available at competitive pricing, with new releases available at $5.99 for standard definition and $6.99 for high definition and library titles at $3.99 for standard definition and $4.99 for high definition. For most movies, viewers will have 30 days to begin watching their rental, and, once started, 48 hours to finish.

We will be adding many more recent and classic films over the course of the year so keep checking back to Google Play and YouTube to see what’s new.

Posted by Felicity Mcvay, Manager, Content Partnerships.