Sky Movies Gets A New Look!

Added to skymovies.com :

Sky has revealed major enhancements that will be introduced to the Sky Movies service from November 1st 2003.

The new initiative coincides with the announcement that Sky Movies reaches more than 5 million subscribers. We are now the most popular movie service outside the United States!

From November, Sky Movies will feature a new graphic look and exciting new services designed to guide viewers through the hundreds of choices available to them each day.

Key elements of the enhanced service to be rolled out in November include:


About A Boy Free View: for the first time, non-movies subscribers will be given the chance to sample a major Sky Movies premiere. About A Boy, starring Hugh Grant, will be free to all Sky digital and cable subscribers when it premieres on Saturday, 8th November at 8pm, as part of the Brit Hits Long Weekend.

Star Wars Multi-Start: in a world first, on Saturday 15th November, Sky Movies will broadcast a multi-start premiere, available exclusively to Sky digital subscribers. By tuning to Sky Movies 3 and pressing the red button on their digital remote control, viewers will be able to select a screening of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, at a time to suit them.

World Cinema Strand: Sky Cinema has strengthened its offering, with documentaries and special features - including a major Chaplin season in December - plus a significant new World Cinema strand, which in November will include the UK TV premiere of Y Tu Mama Tambien.

New logo & on-air feel: this will include a new graphic look - originated in-house - which reflects the mood of each, upcoming movie to give the viewer a guide to what is coming next.

Star-rating on films and new reviews: Sky digital subscribers will enjoy the addition of an independently sourced star-rating on Sky Movies listings and simpler movie descriptions, to give viewers a clear and frank review of every movie.


This sounds so much more impressive, about time some thought went into the movie channels

Is this going to be a BBC Four type thing? I.e. generated on demand?

Or are they just going to create idents to suit, for instance "comedy", "drama", "western", etc?

Time will tell!

I unsubscribed from Sky Movies because they just seemed to show the same films over and over again. You only usually got a new film thrown into the pot on a Saturday and I found myself never watching the channels.

I prefer to watch movies via Front Row now when I want to watch them, I find Sky Movies too much of a commitment and that I wasn't getting my money's worth. Anyway, do we know how the new format is going to work ? Are they going to have the same films staggered at different times on each of the screens, or are they going to have unique films on each screen ?

It will be a same to lose the sky movies premier ident. That ident is so gorgeously filmed and designed, and the music that accompanies it is fantastic. If only other broadcasters could look at that and do something better!

I never really liked the new ident for premier, I really loved the gold ident and the fanfare type music.
I hope that with this new look they incorporate more of the 'going to the movies' type feeling that they already had with the old premier idents.

i'm hopeing for a corporate re-working of the 1997 design, with the huge cinema building, and the curtains...

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Images from The TV Room

Interesting. Sounds like Sky Cinema is changing from a classic movie channel into a sort of art-house counterpart to Sky Movies' multiplex.

The red-button Star Wars thing sounds very unusual - I wonder how many extra bits of channel space they're gonna use for it. No mention of an extra Sky Movies channel (rumoured since the loss of Premier Wide) or the dropping of the Premier and Max names (which I think will probably still happen as part of this rebrand.

All in all, it sounds good - Sky Movies has needed a good look at for a while now, widescreen was a good start but this sounds like they're giving it even more attention this time.

Premier and Max are being dropped, it will be Sky Movies 1-9.

In theory the 1997 look was a good idea, especially the cinema part, which at the time looks very fancy and fits in very well into that look. I do hope that they bring the Cinema look back to it, as it will now be a Multiplex instead of three brands with several channels to their name.

The problems with the 1997 look was the Sky egg, as it was very out of place and the whole world which the ident went into, what was that dome thing supposed to be, then that whole look dated very quickly.

I agree, those golden angels looked true Hollywood quality, must've been really expensive too. I wonder how they're going to market numbers 1-9! I can't see them sticking out as brand images. Although Sky do really put a lot of thought and effort into branding

I think the 1997 look has had it's day. Computer generated idents date far too quickly. The mix of CG and live action as seen in the previous and current set was nice. I think my favoute all time Sky Movies idents have to be the last Priemier set, where the women fall through the sky.

Totally agree - that was a cracking ident