Walt Disney Co. is in discussions with other major Hollywood studios to join its digital films service Disney Movies Anywhere, Bloomberg News reported Dec. 14, citing people with knowledge of the strategy.
Disney, which seeks to make its offering more appealing, is reportedly convincing five major studios and other smaller players to provide content for its digital rights locker platform.
Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Universal Pictures, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures Corp., 21st Century Fox Inc.'s 20th Century Fox and other providers offer content via UltraViolet, a cloud-based platform that competes with Disney Movies Anywhere. The latter, meanwhile, offers films produced by Disney and its other brands such as Pixar, Marvel Entertainment Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Both Disney Movies Anywhere and UltraViolet enable users to buy, stream and download movies and other content to multiple devices via a single site.
Universal Pictures is a unit of Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal Media LLC.