Curzon Artificial Eye (CAE), owner of the Curzon chain, has created Curzon On-demand to screen films online at the same time as their cinema release. CAE hopes that the service will increase audiences and help tackle digital piracy.
On Friday, Curzon On-demand will give an online premiere to In Our Name, a BBC-backed film following a soldier coping with post-traumatic stress, starring Bill Fellows, Joanne Froggatt and John Henshaw. Consumers will be able to stream the movie in high definition for £8 to watch on connected TVs, computers or mobile phones.
"It has always been our intention to use digital technology to access a larger audience for the films we distribute," said CAE chief executive Philip Knatchbull.
"If people are going out to the cinema they expect a big screen, comfy seats and great sound. But there is a constituency of people that are never going to the cinema because they don't want to, and the technology has arrived where we can deliver a film in high definition which they can watch on their own platform."
Froggatt, who won a British Independent Film Award this week for her role in In Our Name, expressed her happiness at the film being made more widely available online.
Speaking to PA, she said: "I love to watch things on the big screen but I'd rather people watch it on the internet than not see it at all.
"Some people are too busy to get to the cinema. For some people a cinema's not accessible to them and because it's not a nationwide release at the multiplexes, unless you are in a city, it's very hard to get to an art house sometimes.
"So just practicality-wise I'm really thrilled, because I just think hopefully we'll get a lot more people to view it."
