It's part of Facebook's continuing home entertainment strategy of making films available for rent on the social networking site, although for now it's only available to US users.
This is another step forward from Facebook’s integration with Spotify and Netflix to share music and video content with friends. Watching films on Facebook will be an interactive experience – users will have access to extra content and they can also write pop-up comments on the film for their friends to see.
Lionsgate's Abduction Facebook release includes an exclusive interview with the film's star, Taylor Lautner, and a quiz that can be completed while watching the film.
Also, during key scenes, pop-up boxes will appear on the screen with a quote from the scene, or a 20-second video clip.
The studio is aiming to gather viewing information from this deal with Facebook.
"Basically, we’ll get viewers’ emails. We already know who our fans of the page are, but we don’t have a direct-to-consumer relationship with them," says Anne Parducci, executive vice-president of marketing at Lionsgate.
Abduction will be available for rent for 48 hours for $3.99 (US only), and the fee can be paid by credit card or PayPal, instead of using Facebook’s own virtual currency, Facebook Credits.
This is not the first film to be made available for rent via Facebook: Warner Bros made several titles available last year, including The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and Inception.
