The Movielink acquisition talks are on again, and this time WSJ says it is in advanced talks to be sold to Blockbuster, for possibly less than $50 million in cash and stock.
The online movie service, jointly owned by the major movie studios, has been on and off the sale block for about two years now, and a formal process earlier did involve Blockbuster, among others (such as Comcast, AT&T and private investors as well). The last rumor I heard a few months ago was that SanDisk was looking at it seriously, in an attempt to embed a movie service within its line of digital media players.
Anyway, on to this round, Blockbuster is trying to compete with the other downloading services, and with Netflix’ new service as well as Amazon.com and Wal-Mart’s services, it is feeling the heat. The story says Blockbuster management has concluded that creating its own platform would be considerably more expensive than doing a relatively cheap deal on Movielink.
Related:
—Movielink Download-To-Own Watchable on DVD Players; No Studio Deal Yet
—That Movielink-Being-On-The-Block Thing
—Movielink, CinemaNow Are “Hostile” Purchase Options: Critic
—Movielink Off The Sale Block
—Is Movielink Up For Sale?
—Piracy Fears Limit Film Downloads From Movielink