U.S. movie rental giant Blockbuster is in advanced talks to acquire Movielink, an online movie-downloading company, for a quick way into the nascent but potentially huge download market, reports said Friday.

The Dallas-based Blockbuster, currently the No. 1 in movie rental business, is proposing to pay about 50 million dollars for the Hollywood company, in order to grow a third leg of its business after in-store and online rental operations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Movielink, based in Santa Monica, California, is a studio jointly owned by MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Bros. The company has quietly peddled films online since 2002, but with little success.

However, the new online movie download market has begun to pick up momentum in the past year, with big players like Apple Inc.'s iTunes and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. jumping into the fray in recent months.

Blockbuster could bring much-needed marketing muscle to Movielink's efforts to increase market share, industry analysts said.

While Blockbuster has had to come from behind in the online DVD rental business after entering it in 2004 -- five years after rival Netflix, it seems the company is not taking a wait-and-see attitude towards movie downloads.

The news about Blockbuster's possible acquisition of Movielink came just several weeks after Netflix announced its new "Watch Now " downloading service in January.

Blockbuster Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Antioco reportedly said this week that while it may take five years for the movie downloading business to be significant, his company would move into it sooner rather than later this time, but "in a cost-effective way."

Source: Xinhua