Paramount to release feature films, plus extras for Windows Phone 7

Once upon a time you had to trek to a movie theater to watch a film, or perhaps wait for it to show up on television. Then came the VCR era, followed by the DVD era, which added the innovation of “extras,” allowing you to see deleted scenes, play games, and listen to secondary audio tracks. Now it looks like extras are coming to mobile devices.

Paramount has announced that it will release 10 “enhanced movie apps” for Windows Phone 7, allowing you to watch a feature-length movie on your mobile device, as well as bonus material that’s “not available on other platforms.”

The apps will be based on Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, and titles will include School of Rock, Zoolander, Waiting for Superman, and GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, with a few more titles to be announced in the future.

The special features will included social networking features, the ability to create clips of the movie, or view pop-up trivia from “Scene It?” Probably the coolest feature will be one which lets you identify actors, music, places, and other objects in a movie while it’s playing.

There’s no word on pricing yet, but as long as the titles aren’t too expensive, this looks like a pretty nifty way to leverage the Windows Phone 7 platform. Of course, the advantage of sticking to a more traditional model of making your movies available for download through iTunes or a similar store is that you can watch them on a mobile device and a PC or TV with a larger display. But perhaps Paramount and/or Microsoft have a plan to make this content available on multiple platforms in the future.