The studio’s scheme will take place in the US, and push product – starting with Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel, Prometheus – through the UltraViolet cloud movie service.

Prometheus will be offered to UV users in the States on 18 September – folk waiting for the DVD or Blu-ray won’t get it until 11 October, which is when the film will also be made available to video-on-demand services, such as Netflix. The download will cost less too, though by how much will depend on the extent to which retailers discount a given title’s discs.

Fox executives told the New York Times that the studio will offer early, lower-priced sales on all of its forthcoming films for an indefinite period to give it time to assess the scheme’s impact.

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