who owns rotten tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is owned by Fandango , which is itself a joint venture: the majority owner is the investment firm Versant, and the minority owner is Warner Bros. (via Warner Bros. Discovery).
Who owns Rotten Tomatoes?
- Rotten Tomatoes’ direct owner: Fandango Media.
- Fandango’s majority owner: Versant (a private equity/investment entity).
- Fandango’s minority owner: Warner Bros., part of Warner Bros. Discovery.
In simple terms:
Rotten Tomatoes → owned by Fandango → controlled mainly by Versant, with Warner Bros. holding a smaller stake.
Quick history of ownership
- 1998: Rotten Tomatoes founded by Senh Duong (with Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang later involved).
- 2004: Acquired by IGN Entertainment.
- 2005: IGN (and thus Rotten Tomatoes) bought by News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media.
- 2010: Sold to Flixster.
- 2011: Flixster acquired by Warner Bros.
- 2016: Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes sold into Fandango, with Warner Bros. retaining a minority stake in the combined company.
This chain is why people sometimes still say “Warner Bros owns Rotten Tomatoes,” but technically the parent is Fandango, with Warner Bros. as a minority owner rather than full owner.
Why this comes up in discussions and forums
Rotten Tomatoes sits at the center of a lot of movie fan debates, especially when big studio releases get surprisingly low (or high) Tomatometer scores. Because Warner Bros. has a stake in Fandango, users often wonder about potential conflicts of interest, especially when WB films perform well or poorly on the site.
Common forum discussion angles include:
- Conflict‑of‑interest worries
- Some users argue that a studio linked to the site’s ownership could, in theory, benefit from softer coverage or promotional positioning.
* Others counter that Rotten Tomatoes aggregates reviews from many independent critics and outlets, so direct score manipulation would be difficult without being noticed.
- How scores are actually calculated
- Tomatometer scores are based on the proportion of reviews tagged as positive (“Fresh”) versus negative (“Rotten”), not an average rating.
* That simple positive/negative split can amplify controversy for films that are “mixed” but get labeled one way or the other.
- Studio vs. aggregator
- Discussions often highlight that studios mainly care about traffic, visibility, and ticket sales; owning or partly owning a popular review hub can be valuable advertising real estate.
* Some executives have publicly claimed the editorial side operates independently from studio influence, pointing to low scores on their own films as evidence.
Fast FAQ-style recap
- Who owns Rotten Tomatoes right now?
- Fandango.
- Who owns Fandango?
- Majority: Versant.
- Minority: Warner Bros. (Warner Bros. Discovery).
- Is Warner Bros. the “owner” of Rotten Tomatoes?
- Not directly; it holds a minority stake in Fandango, which owns Rotten Tomatoes.
- Why do people still say “Warner Bros owns Rotten Tomatoes”?
- Because Warner Bros. previously owned Rotten Tomatoes more directly via Flixster, and still has an ongoing minority stake in Fandango.
TL;DR: If you’re asking “who owns Rotten Tomatoes” in 2026, the precise answer is: Fandango is the owner, controlled chiefly by Versant, with Warner Bros. (through Warner Bros. Discovery) as a minority partner.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.