Movies from the deal will begin streaming from Netflix on September 1 and include movies from Paramount, Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) and MGM. The two didn’t offer specifics about how many years were in the “multi-year” agreement, nor did they mention a price. The LATimes, which first reported a deal was close on Monday, estimated that Netflix would pay Epix $1 billion for access to its partners films, which include such titles as Iron Man 2, Dinner for Schmucks and The Expendables.

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The deal follows last month’s agreement between Netflix and Relativity Media, which gave the movie renter the streaming rights to Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg’s The Fighter, Nicolas Cage’s Season of the Witch and Peter Farley’s Movie 43.

While these deals aren’t designed to further kill off the DVD business, it does represent a challenge to the pay TV movie dominance of HBO, Showtime and Starz—which is what Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate had in mind when they created Epix. 

So while this deal doesn’t mean anything for the DVD new release sales window, it does help smooth Netflix’s path for the day when its online streaming business overtakes DVD rentals, something the company has been working on very carefully for the past few years. Release