NEW YORK — Time Warner’s Warner Bros. is in talks to acquire social movie site Flixster, which includes the Rotten Tomatoes reviews site and offers recommendations, ratings and a popular mobile app, a source confirmed Monday.
A purchase could be “potentially attractive” for Warners to add an asset that could help its broader home entertainment strategy, but a deal is likely still at least a couple of weeks away and could always fail to come together, the source said.
Flixster and its brands could be a good business for Warners, help it provide further information and build buzz for releases and could also become a potential digital distribution play, the person said. Warners just expanded a film rental trial with Facebook to include five additional titles.
However, the source also emphasized that Warners would look to maintain high walls, particularly between Flixster’s Rotten Tomatoes and the rest of the business, to avoid any interference with Rotten Tomatoes’ editorial independence.
AllThingsD first reported that Warners is in talks to buy Flixster for a possible price tag in the $60 million-$90 million range, while Yahoo has dropped out of the bidding, leaving Warners as the frontrunner.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. owns 20 percent in Flixster after selling Rotten Tomatoes to the company a little over a year ago.
A TW spokesman declined comment. Flixster couldn’t immediately be reached.
