Entertainment

Warner Bros. yanks Whitney Houston films from Netflix

Taylor Bigler Entertainment Editor
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Fans wishing to pay tribute to Whitney Houston by watching her films will have to fork over some cash or wait a few days.

In the wake of the singer’s death, Netflix was told by Warner Bros. to pull all of Houston’s films from online streaming to boost DVD sales. A Netflix representative told Dan McDermott, host of Google Plus Week:

“…I just went and talked to my main supervisor as to why the movie had been pulled and the reason it was pulled was the production company pulled the streaming rights from us because all the publicity after Whitney Houston’s passing there was an opportunity to make really a very large amount of money on the DVD sales of her movies. So they’re going to pull all the streaming titles we have of Whitney Houston so they can make more money off the DVD sales of her movies.”

Netflix subscribers pay a monthly fee to stream select movies online at no additional charge.

This is the most recent instance of a company capitalizing on the singer’s death.

The day after she died on Feb. 11, Apple and Sony raised the price of Houston’s “The Ultimate Collection” by 60 percent in the U.K. The music giant and record label reverted back to the original price after backlash against the price increase.

In the 10 days since the singer’s death, her albums have skyrocketed on the iTunes and Billboard 100 charts.

“I Will Always Love You” is currently number five on the iTunes singles chart, and Houston’s “The Greatest Hits” album is second after Adele’s Grammy-winning album “21.”

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