Warner Expands Facebook Rental Experiment [Warner Offers Up A Set Of Five New Titles For Rental On Facebook, Dark Knight Joined By Harry Potter, Inception, And More]

Posted on TFTS by Steve Anderson on Monday, 28. March 2011 under: Audio,Visual, Internet Highlights

For those of you who liked being able to rent Warner Brothers’ The Dark Knight on Facebook as we announced here bare weeks ago, you’ll be especially happy to know that the crew out at Warner Brothers has expanded their offerings substantially–like a whopping five hundred percent substantially.

Where before, you could only rent The Dark Knight using your Facebook Credits (or actual foldin’ money, of course, three bucks’ worth), you’ll now have access to as many as six titles. And these aren’t just catalog titles Warner pulled out of the basement just for the sake of something to try, either; no, Warner’s got its game face on for this one. You’ll now have access to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Yogi Bear, Life As We Know It, and surprisingly, Inception.

There was no announcement on pricing, though some reports peg the new arrivals as being slightly more expensive (40 Facebook Credits instead of The Dark Knight’s 30). Once you drop your fake money–or actual money, depending–you’ll have access to the film for two days, letting you pause, rewind, and stop outright as you see fit. You’ll even be able to drop comments on the movies as you watch, likely leading to a whole new frontier for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 / Rifftrax crew, and a slew of likely imitators.

Further word suggests that Sony would like to get involved in an approach like this, and it’s an interesting concept. I remember the studios fighting tooth and nail to keep Netflix out of the streaming concept, though Netflix’s all you can stream buffet is substantially less revenue back to the studios than Facebook’s $3 / 30 credits a dish menu will likely provide. And there’s no doubt that Facebook has the numbers to make this a worthwhile stop on the studios’ tour of the net. Though it does remain to be seen just how many people will be willing to use their current favorite social network as a video rental stop (and whether this move will give Facebook more longevity than competitor MySpace), so keep it here for the latest.