Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has announced an agreement to acquire Flixster a highly popular movie discovery application company with over 25 million worldwide users per month. The acquisition also includes Rotten Tomatoes a top 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 use 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. ” says 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 ” says 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.”
