Wing Commander Added to Movies Anywhere Sale, Watch Parties Also Available

AD came along an interesting Wing Commander sale at Movies Anywhere. As we reported a number of years ago, Movies Anywhere is a unifying service that allows your digital purchase from one storefront to appear in your library at many others. This includes Apple/iTunes, Amazon, Microsoft/Xbox, Google/YouTube and Vudu. Today's sale offers up free access to one of ten films if you buy one of a corresponding movie, including Wing Commander. Interestingly enough, WC is included in the Disney/Fox category, although the distribution rights have been a bit murky since reverting to Chris Roberts a few years back. Wing Commander briefly disappeared from storefronts and the disc copies went out of print, but it's since become widely available in digital format again for about $10.

As we continue into year two of the coronavirus pandemic, a small number of virtual conveniences have cropped up that I hope are here to stay. Movies Anywhere and Amazon, for example, give viewers the ability to host a "watch party" where groups of friends across several households can jointly control (play/pause/stop/rewind) the viewing experience and watch together over chat/phone/video calling. We used to do this together manually ("3, 2, 1, play!") in #Wingnut twenty years ago, so it's neat to see the rest of the world catching up! Generally, everyone needs to buy or rent a copy themselves, but Movies Anywhere gives owners several "screen passes" to digitally loan to friends or add to a party for free, which is a nice bonus. Hopefully this feature sticks around. This, and drop-off food delivery. I love not having to talk to the delivery person.