Fandango, the one-stop shop for all things movie ticket buying and theater availability checking, has acquired two of the other sites trying to occupying real estate on the the same proverbial block — Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster. As most know, Rotten Tomatoes is largely an aggregation of critic reviews and Flixster is used to research and discover films. With this move, Fandango has pretty much swept away any competition that may pose a threat. As The Verge reports,
[Fandango] has purchased both the movie critic aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes and the discovery app Flixster. Fandango picked up the sites from Warner Bros. Entertainment, which in turn will now have a minority ownership stake in Fandango. (Lest it seem like Rotten Tomatoes is finally breaking free of the yoke of perceived conflicts of interest, it should be pointed out that Fandango is owned by NBCUniversal, meaning everybody’s still staying within the larger Hollywood family.)
There are very few (if any) commercials sites still independently owned and operated, so the fact that this deal still places all sites involved squarely in the same incestuous Hollywood business circles as before is not surprising. What is slightly (but still only slightly) shocking is that Fandango now seems to be going whole hog towards the same end game as Amazon, Hulu, and Crackle in the hopes of coming out on top in the crowded streaming market. In a world where everybody would rather stay home on their couches and enjoy television and film offerings than venture out and pay $15 per movie screening, it only makes sense that Fandango would want a larger piece of that pie. Selling movie tickets is cool. You know what’s really cool? Selling movie tickets, movies, and even the popcorn from the concession stand all in one fell swoop.
(Via The Verge)
