Fandango Acquires Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes

Posted on March 10, 2016

Fandango announced it has signed an agreement to acquire both Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango is acquiring the sites from Warner Bros. The sites reach a total audience of 20 million unique visitors.

Fandango President Paul Yanover says in a statement, "Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes are invaluable resources for movie fans, and we look forward to growing these successful properties, driving more theatrical ticketing and super-serving consumers with all their movie needs. Our new expanded network will offer unparalleled capabilities for all of our exhibition, studio and promotional partners to reach a massive entertainment audience with innovative marketing and ticketing solutions that benefit from original content, home entertainment products, 'super tickets,' gifts with purchase, and other new promotional opportunities."

Fandango says the addition of the two sites will bring its total monthly audience to 63 million. The deal makes Fandango the owner of Rotten Tomatoes popular Tomatometer ratings system. Fandango says Flixster Video will be transitioning users to Fandango's upcoming video on-demand service, which is expected to launch later this year.

Fandango says it experience 81% growth in U.S. ticketing sales last year. It also claims to have generated 4.5 billion video views. It should be well positioned to continue to grow at a good clip with the addition of these popular movie sites.