The world's first "studio-backed broadband film" - Jackass 2.5 - will later this month premiere online, bypassing a traditional cinema release.

The third movie spin-off of the Jackass franchise will be offered, courtesy of Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment and MTV New Media in association with Blockbuster, completely free for two weeks from 19 December at blockbuster.jackassworld.com.

On 26 December, it'll be made available via pay-per-view platforms and on DVD in what Reuters describes as "a light-speed reinvention of the customary distribution-window chain".

Tom Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment, explained: "We're trying to shake up the model. We're trying to prove that some form of longform distribution can be successful on the internet."

Jeff Tremaine, producer of the Jackass films, promised that while Jackass 2.5 offers "a higher percentage of gross or inappropriate things to it" than previous outings, it contains "nothing so gross that it couldn't have been in Jackass 2".

Nonetheless, Blockbuster will attempt to protect innocents from the new movie with an age-verification system designed to "discourage anyone under the age of 17 from seeing 2.5". ®

21 comments posted — Comment period finished