Facebook to offer movie rentals

Movie rentals are coming to Facebook. Warner Bros. says it is testing a service that will offer select movies for purchase or rental through the public pages of these movies on the world's largest online social network.

Starting Tuesday, Facebook users who visit the official page of "Batman: The Dark Knight" will be able to click a "watch" icon and pay 30 Facebook credits, or $3, to watch the movie. The movie is streamed through a Facebook application.

Renters will have access to a movie for 48 hours and can replay it as many times as they like. Warner Bros said it will add other movies in coming months but did not say what those would be.

The page had nearly 4 million "likes" as of Tuesday afternoon. Another page, called simply "Dark Knight," had about 2 million -- but this is not the official Warner Bros. page and the movie isn't available through it. Warner Bros. didn't say how much it will cost to buy movies.

The offering is only open to people in the United States.

"While officially dubbed a test, we expect to see more studios get behind the effort given the large platform and higher price point," wrote Jefferies analyst Youssef H. Squali in a note to investors. He added that he sees the Facebook-Warner Bros. deal as "yet another caution sign" against movie rental company Netflix Inc.'s high stock value.

Netflix lost $11.95, or 5.8 percent, to close at $195.45. Netflix had no comment.