Actor and filmmaker Ron Howard is throwing his weight behind billionaire Sean Parker's latest start-up The Screening Room because there is an inevitability to releasing a movie simultaneously in theaters and in homes, he told CNBC on Thursday.
Parker, who co-founded Napster, is teaming with music executive Prem Akkaraju in an attempt to bring first-run films into homes through a $150 encrypted set-box. For $50, viewers have access to the movie for 48 hours.
"What I kind of love about Sean Parker's idea is that it's limited, there is revenue share with the theater owners and I think that it sort of eventizes movies," he said in an interview with "Closing Bell."
According to Variety, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and J.J. Abrams are also backing the company.
While Howard said every filmmaker would prefer audiences to view their films in a "single sitting, up on a big screen with great sound," he said anything that refreshes audience sensibility is good for the industry.
"There are all these great TV series, you can watch all these hours and hours of shows and ideas, but there's still something great about a movie that unfolds in a couple of hours and you have the complete experience," he said. "I think if you do it at home and you get excited about that format again you're very likely to go to see it in a great theater, IMAX or something."
Howard's latest movie, "Inferno," opens in theaters Friday. It is the third installment in the "Da Vinci Code" franchise and stars Tom Hanks.
— The Associated Press contributed to this story.