The joint venture involving Viacom, Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM), and Lions Gate Entertainment will be launching online as "epix" before it arranges a TV distribution deal, the companies have revealed. The venture, called Studio 3 Networks, said that the online service will provide original TV programming as well as on-demand movies over the Internet, with a distribution deal on cable networks expected to come later in the year.

Studio 3 Networks president Mark Greenberg said that the name epix embodies the "depth and breath of entertainment content" that the companies will deliver, and is also meant to evoke the different ways customers will eventually interact with the content on multiple platforms. "With epix, we are creating an entirely new category of entertainment service for consumers that is unlike anything that currently exists," Greenberg said in a statement. "epix is the first brand to hold exclusive exhibition rights to movie content that can be delivered anywhere, anytime."

Studio 3 plans to launch the broadband version of epix around May, with a cable launch during the fourth quarter of 2009. At the time of launch, consumers will have "immediate access" to feature films from the three studios, including both recent releases (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Cloverfield, for example) as well as classic films (17 remastered James Bond movies, the Indiana Jones series, and more). The companies say that viewers will also get access to directors' script notes, outtakes, auditions and other extras like trivia and games, making the epix experience more akin to having access to full DVDs online.

The companies didn't elaborate what type of original TV programming is planned, leaving us hoping that it will at least be on par with some of the other high-quality original programming offered by similar TV networks—it's no secret that Dexter is a favorite among the Ars staff, and Weeds comes in as a close second.

At the NATPE conference in Las Vegas this week, however, Lions Gate CEO Jon Feltheimer said that epix's original programming had been pitched to HBO, but did not describe how those talks were going. This actually highlights epix's main problem—without a TV distribution deal, its audience will be extremely limited.

As noted by PaidContent, wannabe networks used to be out of luck if they couldn't find a cable distribution deal or something on satellite, but they can now default to launching something online in hopes of scoring a deal later. We'll have to wait and see whether epix manages to sell distribution rights to its original programming by the time fall rolls around, else the studios may regret announcing an expected launch timeline so early on.