Warner Bros. Buys Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes

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If you thought it was impossible for entertainment juggernaut Warner Bros. to have even more under its belt beyond the WB Network and – of course – the Harry Potter films, then a little announcement today might persuade you otherwise.

With ambitions to expand its digital rollout, the company has agreed to purchase popular movie-discovery service Flixster and its subsidiary Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently, Flixster, which offers listings, photos and trailers, is installed on more than 35 million smartphones. Rotten Tomatoes, though lacking a mobile presence, draws more than 12 million unique visitors per month for the site’s movie reviews. Both sites are operated independently and will continue to do so under the new deal.

“Driving the growth of digital ownership is a central, strategic focus for Warner Bros.,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. “The acquisition of Flixster will allow us to advance that strategy and promote initiatives that will help grow digital ownership.”

Part of this initiative includes using Flixster to launch a cloud service for storing movie purchases (no matter which studio makes them). The company also recently launched an application called “Digital Everywhere” that allows people to organize and access their digital library from any device.

Though it did not disclose the terms of the deal, the purchase is estimated to be up to $90 million.

Maybe, just maybe, after the last Harry Potter is released in July, teenage girls will be flocking to find a way to keep a digital Daniel Radcliffe locked away on their mobile devices forever.

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