Paramount goes digital-only in US for features, as 35mm film era nears end

Roll credits. For more than a century, Hollywood has relied on 35mm film to capture its fleeting images and deliver them to the silver screen. Now, in a historic move, Paramount Pictures has become the first big studio to stop releasing its major movies on film in the United States.

The studio's Oscar-nominated film is the studio's first movie in wide release to be distributed entirely in digital format, according to movie industry executives briefed on the plan.

Paramount recently notified cinema owners that its Will Ferrell comedy , which opened in December, was the last movie released on 35mm film, the executives said. Previously, only small movies such as documentaries were released solely in digital format.

The decision is likely to encourage other studios to follow suit, accelerating a complete phase-out of film that could come by the end of the year.

"It's of huge significance because Paramount is the first studio to make this policy known," said Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. "For 120 years, film and 35mm has been the format of choice for theatrical presentations. Now we're seeing the end of that. I'm not shocked that it's happened, but how quickly it has happened."

Paramount has kept its decision under wraps, at least in Hollywood, and a spokeswoman for the studio did not return calls for comment.

Its reticence reflects the fact that no studio wants to be seen as the first to abandon film, which retains a cachet among purists. Some studios may also be reluctant to give up box-office revenue by bypassing cinemas that can show only film.