Disney Will Ask Other Studios to Join Digital Movie Service

Walt Disney is in talks with other major Hollywood studios to join its Disney Movies Anywhere service, which lets customers buy, watch and store their online film purchases at a single site, according to Bloomberg.

Disney is trying to add content from other studios to boost the appeal of its offering, which was introduced in 2014, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Disney has been in an ongoing tug-of-war with five other major studios and many smaller players that support a format called UltraViolet.

Hollywood has struggled to adapt to collapsing DVD sales, dwindling box-office attendance and rising competition from digital distributors like Netflix. Electronic purchases of movies and TV shows have been a bright spot in the U.S. home entertainment industry, with spending up 7.5 percent to $1.46 billion through nine months of 2016, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry-backed consortium.

Disney Movies Anywhere uses a proprietary storage technology called KeyChest to let customers store and access movies at a single site, whether they’re purchased from Apple’s iTunes, Amazon, Google or Wal-Mart. The service offers films from all of the company’s brands, including Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. UltraViolet offers a similar product, an online locker with movies and TV shows from Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Sony, Paramount, 20th Century Fox and dozens of other providers. Disney may have to change the name of its service to attract the other moviemakers.