Facebook Movie Rentals Adds 5 Warner Bros. Movie Titles

Warner Bros. is expanding its Facebook movie rental service with five new films including Inception , the first two Harry Potter Movies, the romantic comedy Life as We Know It and Yogi Bear . The new films are available starting Monday and should cost between 30 and 40 Facebook credits ($3-$4) each for 48-hour unlimited streaming access. The newer movies including Inception, Life As We Know It and Yogi Bear appear to be priced 10 credits ($1) higher than older movies such as The Dark Knight , Warner Bros' first offering that debuted in early March, and the Harry Potter films. Warner Bros. says the new films are still part of its "test offering of movies." Warner Bros. has not officially confirmed online movie rental pricing.

How it Works

To get started, visit the Facebook pages for each movie (links above) and select the "Watch" link in the navigation column on the left. On the next page click the "Watch Now" link embedded in the movie poster in the center column for each title. You will then be asked to agree to use the app for each movie, requiring you to share your basic Facebook information with the app including your name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other publicly available information you've shared on the social network.

After you agree, you will then be prompted to enter your ZIP code and pay with Facebook credits to rent the movie. If you don't have enough Facebook credits, you can buy more credits on this page by clicking the "buy more" link. Facebook movie streaming is available to users in the U.S. only.

While you're watching the movie, you will have access to Facebook features such as commenting on the movie, chatting with friends and updating your status.

Better Selection

The new movies on Facebook represent an improved selection compared to Warner Bros.' debut release of the Dark Knight. The latest Batman film may be a popular movie, but it is also three years old and many were likely to have seen the film several times over. But Monday's new titles include a mix of older and newer movies, some of which were only recently released on DVD. Yogi Bear's DVD release was just six days ago on March 22, and Life As We Know It, starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel, had its DVD release on February 8. Inception was released to DVD in December.

It's not clear if Warner Bros. plans on releasing a much larger catalog of movies for rental on Facebook or if the studio will only use the service for select titles. Either way, the new service is still not as good a deal as a Netflix subscription, which costs as little as $8 per month and gives you unlimited streaming access to a large selection of titles.

It's also worth noting that none of the six titles available from Warner Bros. on Facebook are currently available for Netflix streaming, although most are available for DVD rental from Netflix with the exception of Yogi Bear.