Cinedigm announced today that they have acquired Fandor, an independent film subscription streaming service, which offers the largest collection of independent films, documentaries, and international features in the market. Fandor houses over 4,600 film titles from more than 400 global and diverse partner film companies, ranging from studio classics to festival favorites to essential award-winning foreign cinema features.
With the acquisition, Cinedigm plans on backing Fandor with its own content library, technology, engineering and distribution capabilities to rapidly expand Fandor’s content offering, relaunch the service’s apps and expand distribution to Cinedigm’s audience on over 900 million connected devices.
In late-2018, Fandor restructured the business, laying off their entire staff. At the time, the company said that the site would “continue streaming movies without interruptions. It is not out of business or going out of business.” Prior to that, it is probably best known for being bundled with MoviePass, the shuttered theatrical movie subscription service.
Cinedigm will continue to offer Fandor ad-free, but also plans to offer a free, ad-supported on-demand tier as well as a linear streaming channel to further broaden the service’s reach to audiences of all viewing preferences. Cinedigm also plans to relaunch Keyframe, Fandor’s web and video-based publication dedicated to covering the art of cinema. Phil Hopkins, president of Cinedigm’s Film Detective division will oversee Fandor and Keyframe, with the goal of relaunching the service in the second quarter.
“This acquisition of Fandor, coming on the heels of our Film Detective acquisition, solidifies Cinedigm’s position as the leading global streaming company for independent films,” said Chris McGurk, Cinedigm chairman and CEO.
Fandor was founded in 2010 in by Dan Aronson, Jonathan Marlow, and Albert Reinhardt. The service, which delivers a 50 percent revenue share to films’ rights holders, is available via desktop, iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Amazon Prime, and social media.