Actor-filmmaker Edward Burns is eschewing a traditional theatrical debut for his new film in favour of releasing Purple Violets via Apple's iTunes online store.

"My style of filmmaking is dying on the vine. These small, talky movies have a hard time finding an audience theatrically, so you need to adapt," Burns, who wrote and directed the film, announced this week.
  
"There are still people who want to see this non-traditional type of film, and now there are non-traditional ways to get them out there."

Purple Violets stars Selma Blair, Debra Messing, Patrick Wilson and Burns, also the director of such indie movies as The Brothers McMullen and She's the One.

The filmmaker said that regardless of the positive reviews his $4-million US film drew at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, it still met with poor distribution offers, thus prompting his decision to debut his film online.

A statement from Apple called it the first movie to "premiere exclusively on iTunes." The film will be available to U.S. buyers for $14.99 US as of Nov. 20.

The first full-length movie iTunes featured was High School Musical, which it began offering last year after the teen hit had already aired on the Disney Channel.

Currently, only the U.S. market has complete access to purchasing music, TV programs and movies from Apple.

Canadian iTunes users, for instance, are limited for the most part to music files, while British users can buy music and some television shows.

Studios have been slow to move toward new distribution models for films, especially via the internet. One major obstacle has been a fear of increased movie piracy, while differing copyright agreements worldwide are considered another barrier.