Tencent is partnering with Hollywood film companies including Warner Bros., Universal Studios, Miramax Films and Lionsgate for a new online video company – Hollywood VIP, the company announced on Jan. 10.
Chinese audiences will have the opportunity to watch selected Hollywood movies such as Batman, The Fast and the Furious, and Harry Potter on the Tencent video platform before the films are made available on other video sites.
Supported by huge numbers of SNS (Social Networking Services) users and leading high-quality servers, Tecent aims at further digging into the Chinese digital content distribution market.
“We are happy to cooperate with the largest Hollywood film companies to provide faster film distribution service models with better users’ experience,” said Liu Chunning, general manager of online video business at Tencent.“It’s a new try for China, even the world.”
“We are expecting deeper cooperation with Tencent to further increase our film distribution in the China market,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.
“It’s an exciting cooperation with Tencent to charge Chinese consumers for the movie providing services at any time anywhere,” said Rick Finkelstein, vice president of Universal Studios.
In addition, CET, a joint venture established by Lionsgate, Saban Capital and Malaysian film company Celestial Pictures also signed a cooperation agreement with Tencent to provide copyrights of movie products from Lionsgate.
“We are happy to provide Chinese consumers abundant movies through such a creative SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) platform and appreciate what Tencent and Warner Bros. did for movie studios like us,” said Beth Minehart, vice president of Miramax.