A Santa Monica company is hoping an iPad or iPhone could be the next place a blockbuster movie is released. The company is debuting a new film in the Apple App Store. Mekahlo Medina reports for the NBC4 News at Noon on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014.
The producer behind such films as "The Ring" and "Mulholland Drive" is taking his new horror flick to darker places: the smartphone nestled in your pocket or purse.
Producer Neal Edelstein, working from his Santa Monica work loft with a team of about five people, is planning to release his next film not simply as a video on iTunes but as a downloadable app in Apple’s App Store.
"For me, it’s always been about telling stories in a different way," Edelstein said. "We wanted to use the app technology and that container to tell stories in a completely different way."
The movie is titled "Dark Hearts: The Secret of Haunting Melissa," and it is a story about a teenage girl who disappears out of the blue. The film will be separated into 25 chapters, each ranging from a few minutes to six minutes.
It will cost viewers 99 cents for each chapter, or about $6 for the entire movie, Edelstein said. Over the course of a couple months, the film creators will send viewers push notifications to let them know of newly released chapters.
Last year, Edelstein released the prequel to "Dark Hearts," which has garnered more than 5 million downloads. His team frequently adds new content to the chapters, tempting fans who got hooked on the story to check back again.
The new film is set to be released on the App Store on Thursday.
