Amazon has announced that it’s going to invest heavily in production of theatrical movies that will rapidly shift to its Prime streaming service. Which is great in a fast-tracking sense, but not particularly for Australian viewers.
Amazon’s announcement promises that alongside the TV style production that it’s already committed to, the company will develop “Amazon Original Movies” which will debut on Amazon Prime Instant Video four to eight weeks after their theatrical debut, as distinct (according to Amazon’s figures) from a typical 39 to 52 week window for movies on other subscription services.
It’s a solid nod towards the need for fast tracking movies in the digital age, but the issue remains that Amazon won’t sign you up for an Amazon Prime account unless you’re in the US. With the rush of incoming and recently launched streaming services in Australia it’s quite feasible that we may see some of these Amazon Originals on Stan, Presto or Netflix at some point, as well as in theatres — but there again it’s common for Australians to be hit with significant release delays.
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4 responses to “Amazon’s New Movie Plans Won’t Help Australians Much”
Right back atcha, America: fuck you, too, the feeling is mutual.
It’s actually kind of impressive just how regularly US companies can find new ways of lessening any guilt I might feel about circumventing their bullshit rules.
My experience of working in the US on issues that affect international customers is that most of the concerned staff can barely conceive of how a non-US country can exist let alone operate. Even when we had issues of a foreign country providing >25% of a product’s sales and very stringent SLAs, it was clear that US managers would rather lose those sales than try to wrap their head around anything faintly exotic that challenged the way they did things in the US.
I’ve had issues back when I was a fitter and turner trying to parts from the us.
They seem amazed that any one outside their country would use the equipment let alone have the ability to ask a technical question.
I had amazon prime for a year with an Aussie credit card and an unblocking service. I couldn’t get any paid content once on there but all the free streaming content worked.
Just saying.