We all followed the creation of ClickStar in 2005, when with some Intel VC funding and the fabulous name of popular US actor Morgan Freeman, the company said that it would break the mould and take films online even before they had become established through theatrical release.
But the company forgot to mention that for the most part it would only act as an outlet for films that it produced, and that regardless how successful it might be on a deal by deal basis, it was not, after all, likely to form that basis of a film download service that people would finally actually use.
This week it launched a film yet again, this time for a limited number of free downloads from AOL, as a form of premiere for the film Lonely Hearts starring John Travolta, about a pair of serial killers in the US in the 1940s, which sounds like a modern day remake of Bonnie and Clyde.
But this is an interesting model, presumably by giving away a few hundred thousand copies this will replace the spending of $20 million or so in promotional costs with a viral element.
The company doesn’t actually say how many copies it will allow, just that it is a limited number. The film seems to be available globally, not just in the US, but require XP or Vista, Internet Explorer (no other browser will do),
Windows Media Player 10 and needs JavaScript, ActiveX and cookies enabled.
The film will be promoted extensively on AOL Video as well as Moviefone.com where online users can go to check out the movie trailer in advance of the online premiere.
Perhaps if ClickStar makes this system of promotion work for it, it will be able to sign up to represent some other indie films, and make this a genuinely new route to market.
Back in December ClickStar said it had successfully carved out major deals with Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers to build a library of several hundred ‘major’ studio titles to show using Windows Media Center PCs with Intel’s Viiv technology. These are all pay per view from ClickStar’s site but we have had no feedback on how well this is going.