KOLKATA: Ticketing platform BookMyShow has forayed into the streaming business with its very own Transaction Video-on-Demand (TVoD) platform – BookMyShow Stream.
With over 600 movie titles and 72,000+ hours of content, BookMyShow Stream will feature a handpicked, specially curated library of some of the best, celebrated and award-winning films and content from around the world along with India that users can rent or buy and watch.
Along with marquee movie premieres every Friday, the video on demand platform will offer viewers such categories as exclusives, world cinema, missed in theatres and festival favourites.
Starting February 5, BookMyShow Stream will be home to Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, Gal Gadot starrer Wonder Woman 1984 and horror fantasy The Craft: Legacy, giving Indian cinephiles an opportunity to catch these blockbusters that they missed in theatres. Besides these, films like Alone, Yes God Yes, The Peanut Butter Falcon, The Guilty, Les Miserables, Unhinged and acclaimed Russian Sci-fi thriller Coma, from premium independent studios will premiere exclusively on the service.
The platform has struck partnerships with leading global production giants including Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures, enabling it to feature marquee Hollywood content. Also in the offing are compelling films from the library of major Indian production houses such as Viacom18, Shemaroo and Rajshri Productions, as well as regional content providers like Divo and Sillymonks, amongst several others.
BookMyShow Stream will be one of the first Indian streaming platforms to host acquired content from independent film distributors like PictureWorks, Superfine Films, Impact Films, Kahwa Entertainment and VR films. It also boasts of some of the best and most popular world cinema spanning countries such as Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Slovakia and Netherlands.
The service “will give entertainment lovers access to highly curated cinema offerings from around the world, thanks to some long-term, marquee and exclusive partnerships with global and Indian content powerhouses,” said BookMyShow Cinemas COO Ashish Saksena. The newly-launched platform will empower users to pay only for the content that they watch - a trend that's prevalent in other global cinema markets, he opined, but remains untapped at scale in India.
“BookMyShow Stream is a natural extension of our cinemas business and respects the existing theatrical windows for content. With flexible purchase options and a seamless user interface, this new offering furthers BookMyShow’s journey from being a gateway to an evolved curator of tent pole content experiences,” Saksena added.
BookMyShow Stream will offer users the option to rent a movie for a finite duration or buy it for unlimited access with prices that suit all pockets. It will be available for viewing on BookMyShow’s mobile app and website, and on Apple TV, Android TV, Firestick, Chromecast and desktop browsers. The service will allow users to experience features such as downloads, offline viewing and casting.
