E-Vision to showcase top Hollywood blockbusters

Dubai: etisalat's cable TV unit said yesterday it had signed a three-year agreement to showcase Hollywood movies from Warner Brothers on its pay-per-view service.

E-Vision will now offer up to 30 blockbuster titles per year starting this month - including 300, Blood Diamond, Wedding Crashers, Superman Returns and Oscar-winning movies Happy Feet and The Departed - to all customers in the UAE.

The agreement - the result of three years of negotiations - was jointly announced by Humaid Sahoo, CEO of E-Vision, and Jeffrey Schlesinger, president of Warner Bros International Television.

"This initiative is expected to witness great response from all our customers, especially that it delivers exclusive titles from one of the leading studios in Hollywood," Sahoo said.

The first title under the agreement that will be aired on April 26 is action thriller Firewall, starring Harrison Ford. It will be followed by Syriana. The service will also show movies from the Warner Bros Entertainment library, including the Lord of the Rings and Matrix trilogies.

The deal builds on existing content distribution partnerships with Arab Digital Distribution, Showtime and Orbit.

The company is also in discussions with at least two other Hollywood studios for similar licensing deals to bring top-shelf content to customers, Sahoo told Gulf News yesterday.

"Deals of this kind are expensive, but we're looking to do more," he said. "In the past, we've offered many movies, but not blockbuster titles like these."

Sahoo, however, said E-Vision may first wait and see how customers respond to these new offerings before inking further deals.

By year-end, E-Vision may introduce a new form of video delivery service for its cable TV customers. When released, video-on-demand will allow users to watch movies whenever they want.