BURBANK, Calif., May 4, 2011 – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group today announced an agreement to acquire Flixster, the movie discovery application company with over 25 million worldwide users per month. The acquisition also includes Rotten Tomatoes website devoted to film reviews, information and news. Under the terms of the deal, Flixster will continue to operate independently and will expand its services beyond movie discovery to enable digital content ownership and delivery across any connected digital device.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group will utilize the Flixster brand and technical expertise to launch a number of initiatives designed to grow digital content ownership, including the recently announced consumer application “Digital Everywhere.” This studio-agnostic application will be the ultimate destination for consumers to organize and access their entire digital library from anywhere on the device of their choice, as well as to share recommendations and discover new content. The Flixster acquisition and “Digital Everywhere,” combined with the Studio’s support of the UltraViolet format are all part of an overall strategy to give consumers even more freedom, utility and value for their digital purchases.
“Driving the growth of digital ownership is a central, strategic focus for Warner Bros.,” said Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group and Office of the President, Warner Bros. Entertainment. “The acquisition of Flixster will allow us to advance that strategy and promote initiatives that will help grow digital ownership.”
Flixster is currently the number one movie discovery application on mobile platforms with over 35 million downloads to date, including Android, Blackberry and iPad, and ranks among the most downloaded of all iPhone apps. Rotten Tomatoes is one of the most trusted and influential brands in movie reviews with over 12 million unique visitors per month. Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes will remain fully independent. The Flixster team will stay in San Francisco and the Rotten Tomatoes team will continue to work autonomously in Los Angeles.
“We’re thrilled that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group shares our vision for how ‘anytime, anywhere’ digital entertainment can become an amazing user experience,” said Joe Greenstein, co-founder and CEO of Flixster. “We’re excited that Warner was willing to make this kind of commitment to a leading independent consumer platform. We look forward to working with Warner as well as each of the other studios to innovate and build products that users will love.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.




Hooray for them, but how long do you think Rotten Tomatoes will be “fully” independent if reviews for Warner Bros. movies/TV shows are too negative? A major studio owning a movie critique website doesn’t sound like a “win-win” scenario for movie goers.
This exactly.
Nobody seems to mind when Rogue does it.
Maybe now they can bring back the original “Rotten Tomatoes Show” with Brett & Ellen!! I really miss that show…
Oh, and please re-integrate the viewer reviews into the reviews again. I never understood why the hell they stopped doing that.
So they found a way to guarantee The Dark Knight Rises gets a 100% Fresh rating.
Hmm… It would be one thing if WB now owned a site that aggregated reviews, but the subjective nature of Rotten Tomatoes ruling whether the overall review is considered “fresh” or “rotten” makes this more troublesome.
exactly and that’s where the WB influence might be the most visible
That’s why I always pay more attention to the average rating.
60% and up is considered fresh. unless that number changes, the fresh rating is not subjective at all.
True. I’ve seen reviews they’ve deemed fresh based on one line, but when you take the time to read the entire article, it’s actually rotten.
I can hear trust factors plummeting all over America.
Next up: GE purchases the EPA.
Maybe they’ll only post positive reviews now and rename the site “Happy Tomatoes”.
The irony of this is, if WB isn’t wholly transparent about how user input drives RT ratings, they squander the equity they paid for. And if they are wholly transparent, they’ve got an in-house attack vehicle sabotaging their own movies.
TomF,
They’ll only have an “in-house attack vehicle” on their hands if they produce or distribute movies that deserve it.
This just looks all wrong, no matter what angle I try to see at it from.
It casts a shadow over the reliability of the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes going forward, warranted or not, it’s just the way it looks, and it looks rotten.
Memo to Warner Brothers – You don’t get to exploit the Flixster brand and technical expertise, and still legitimately claim the site will remain “independent”. Either you bought Flixster to make it your bitch, or you didn’t. Choose.
Something most people might not know: from 2004 to 2010, Rotten Tomatoes was a subsidiary of IGN, which was in turn owned by Fox Interactive and 20th Century Fox. So, this is not the first time that Rotten Tomatoes was owned by a studio.
Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes app… deleted. Thanks for playing.
I couldnt care less as I have stopped looking at rotten tomatoes who appears to me to manipulate ratings to determine if they are positive. I have seen them post too many reviews that scored a critics 3 out of 5 scoring that was posted as a negative. They have no credibility for me and will have less after the wb acquisition
I guess WB is still on their quest to become the next Netflix. Or better yet to dethrone Netflix. So now they want me to “consolidate” all my movies (theirs only? Or from content providers the world over?) on their special system for “access everywhere”. The thought alone exhausts me. With mirth. Just– WTF.
Seems to me that this is a very “Daffy Duck” business decision that will eventually blow up in their face. I guess Bugs Bunny must’ve been on vacation when they cooked up this deal. “it’s DESPICABLE!”
Well there goes the objectivity of Rotten Tomatoes – and you know everyone is thinking the same thing. Now is the perfect time for a start-up website with no ties to any of the studios. Any venture capitalist out there want to invest in this?
Lots of complaints about reliability – how is this any different then when News Corp owned RT? Lots of Fox films got bad scores.
And Time and EW critics will pan WB movies from time to time.
Conflict of interest much? Do we really think that WB won’t influence ratings? I am surprised this was approved.
Warner, you have just diluted the RottenTomatoes brand. I am disheartened. If only the MMC network had snagged up these properties first!
I don’t want any genetically-engineered frankenfood tasteless tomatoes! I want fresh-from-the-farm organic juicy flavor-rich red fruits.
bye bye to RT’s credibility and soul.
There’s always ‘Movie Review Intelligence’ folks, that culls the same information in a more finessed way to avoid these over-ripe creative flops.
wow the site sucks and i won’t be using it. i’ll truly miss rt.