• Wired, Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:30 AM

Media mogul Mark Cuban will air new movies produced by his company Magnolia Pictures on TV before they are shown in theaters.

Cuban owns HDNet Movies and is betting that early screenings of Magnolia's art-house movies on HDNet's video-on-demand cable service will build buzz. As a result, more people will hear about the movies and go to the theater to see them. Cuban also owns the Landmark Theatres chain.

The contrarian plan reverses the traditional trickle-down distribution pattern of movie theater releases first, then television afterwards. "In sports, every game is on TV and the arena is a completely different experience than [watching] TV," says Cuban. "The same applies to seeing movies."

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