Fandango Media

Fandango Media, LLC
Company type	Joint venture
Industry	Ticketing, Digital video on demand
Predecessor	M-GO, Vudu (rebranded as Fandango at Home)
Founded	2000; 26 years ago
Founder	James Michael Cline, Art Levitt
Headquarters	Beverly Hills, California, United States
Area served	United States, Brazil, Peru (and international via digital services)
Key people	Paul Yanover (President, appointed 2012)
Products	Online movie ticket sales, Digital video sales and streaming (Fandango at Home), Rotten Tomatoes
Owner	NBCUniversal (75%), Warner Bros. Discovery (25%)
Website	www.fandango.com

Fandango Media, LLC is a U.S.-based ticketing enterprise focused on selling movie tickets via its website and mobile applications. Its assets include Fandango at Home (previously known as Vudu, once under Walmart’s ownership), a platform for digital video sales and streaming services, as well as Rotten Tomatoes, a prominent resource for television and streaming content reviews. The company functions as a joint venture, with NBCUniversal (a Comcast subsidiary) owning 75% and Warner Bros. Discovery holding the remaining 25%.

History

Fandango was established in 2000 by James Michael Cline and Art Levitt. By 2003, the company had raised $15 million from Technology Crossover Ventures and was privately controlled by cinema chains such as Loews Cineplex Entertainment, Regal Cinemas, and Cinemark Theatres, alongside venture capital firms Accretive Technology Partners and General Atlantic Partners.

Comcast acquired Fandango on April 11, 2007, intending to incorporate it into its entertainment service "Fancast.com." In June 2008, Fandango purchased the Movies.com domain from Disney. By March 2012, it had formed a partnership with Yahoo! Movies to become their official online and mobile ticket vendor. Later that year, in October, Paul Yanover was appointed President to lead strategic initiatives and business expansion.

In September 2015, Fandango extended its reach internationally by acquiring Brazilian ticketing firm Ingresso, which manages sales for events including Rock in Rio. On January 29, 2016, it took over M-GO—a joint venture between Technicolor SA and DreamWorks Animation (which NBCUniversal later acquired)—rebranding it as FandangoNOW to strengthen its digital video services.

February 2016 marked Fandango’s acquisition of Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes from Warner Bros., with Warner Bros. acquiring a 30% stake in the merged entity (which decreased to 25% by 2019). Later that year in December, the company purchased Peru’s Cinepapaya and relocated its headquarters to a larger facility in Beverly Hills.

On April 20, 2020, Walmart agreed to divest its Vudu streaming service to Fandango Media; this transaction was finalized on July 6, 2020. The service was rebranded as Fandango at Home in 2024. Company co-founder J. Michael Cline passed away at age 64 on July 16, 2024.

Services

Fandango’s platform provides exclusive content such as film clips, trailers, interviews with celebrities, user-generated reviews, movie synopses, and online games for registered users. Since March 2015, customers have been able to request refunds or exchanges up to two hours prior to showtime. The Android version of Fandango’s app was recognized among Techland’s “50 Best Android Applications” in 2013, highlighting its commitment to technological advancement in ticketing solutions.

Competition

Prior to acquiring competitor MovieTickets.com in 2017, Fandango was one of three leading online movie ticket vendors alongside MovieTickets.com and Atom Tickets. Before Comcast’s acquisition in 2007, Fandango remained privately held with Regal Cinemas—a major U.S. theater operator—as a key shareholder. Regal and its partners created Fandango as a response to MovieTickets.com’s growing market presence.

Until 2012, Fandango did not provide ticketing services for many AMC Theatres, except for AMC locations formerly owned by Loews Cineplex Entertainment due to existing contracts. Following legal victories securing Loews’ business, Fandango expanded its offerings to all AMC theaters in 2012. This expansion led to a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by MovieTickets.com’s shareholders. AMC and MovieTickets.com reached a resolution in 2013 allowing tickets to be sold on both platforms. Additionally, in 2012 Fandango partnered with Moviefone, which had previously collaborated with MovieTickets.com.

Introduced in 2014, Atom Tickets became a notable competitor by challenging Fandango’s market dominance through innovative mobile ticketing features. The acquisition of MovieTickets.com further solidified Fandango’s leadership position by broadening its global footprint and enhancing its competitive edge within the online movie ticket sales sector.

Controversies

In July 2009, Fandango, along with other platforms such as buy.com and Orbitz, became associated with contentious post-purchase marketing schemes that accessed users' credit card details. Later, in December 2013, Fandango was involved in a trademark conflict when WWE attempted to register the name "Fandango" for one of its wrestlers.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement with Fandango in August 2014 concerning allegations that the company misled consumers about the security of its mobile application and failed to adequately safeguard sensitive user information. The FTC pointed out vulnerabilities in Fandango’s Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) setup that persisted for four years following the app’s 2009 release, minimal security evaluations conducted in 2011, and insufficient mechanisms for reporting security issues.

Rotten Tomatoes encountered scrutiny regarding its rating methodology. In October 2015, FiveThirtyEight cast doubt on the accuracy of Fandango’s user-generated scores, identifying a pattern where movies seldom received ratings below three stars due to a practice of rounding ratings up to the nearest half-star. Fandango admitted this was a technical error that was being addressed. Additional apprehensions were raised about possible political partiality favoring progressive-themed films and allegations of score manipulation intended to boost commercial success, including an unusual influx of 32 million audience votes for the Star Wars installment Revenge of the Sith in 2012.

In December 2017, numerous users reported issues such as technical glitches and prolonged wait times during early ticket sales for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, negatively affecting customer satisfaction during this high-profile release.

Video on demand

At the beginning of 2016, Fandango expanded its digital offerings by acquiring M-GO and rebranding it as FandangoNOW. In July 2020, the company further increased its presence in the market through the acquisition of Vudu. On August 3, 2021, FandangoNOW and Vudu merged under the "Vudu" brand name, chosen due to its larger user base. This strategic integration strengthened Fandango’s position and competitiveness within the digital video-on-demand sector.

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