Five lands major movies deal

Five has signed a major movie deal that will see it air the UK premiere of Terminator 3 this November, ahead of Sky or any other commercial competitor.

The news makes the premiere the fastest ever for a terrestrial broadcaster: the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie was out in cinemas last August.

Broadcast reports that the deal with Sony Pictures International also includes the premieres of Bruce Willis' Tears of the Sun and Charlize Theron's Trapped.

Jeff Ford, Five's director of acquisitions, told the magazine: "It is great when we break our competitors’ stranglehold on films. We can act quickly at Five and our speed of reaction meant we out-manoeuvred Sky. This is a huge coup for the channel."

Five relies heavily on movies to pull in the ratings: 34 of the channel's top 50 shows this year have been films.

Terrestrial premieres in the package are Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Bad Boys 2, Anger Management, Maid in Manhattan and Daddy Day Care.

The broadcaster has previously secured the terrestrial premieres of major movies including Spider-Man, Men in Black 2, Black Hawk Down, xXx and Panic Room - all of which will be shown next year.