Movie-ticketing giant Fandango is distributing its first film, House of Worship, which opened last weekend at about 400 theaters. They signed on for three days of screenings of the faith-based event pic featuring 25 popular Christian music artists.
It’s the latest push by the Versant Media division as it looks to expand beyond its bread-and-butter movie ticketing. Last month it rebranded its streaming business, and it plans to run its first film through its own growing entertainment ecosystem from theatrical to Premium VOD, TVOD, AVOD and ultimately a library berth.
The film (and a House of Worship album released in January) were executive produced by gospel music royalty Darlene Zschech and Michael W. Smith, with producers Paul Mabury, a drummer and two-time Grammy winner, and John Hartley. Elliott Eicheldinger directed. Fandango said the film is seeing strong engagement from the faith-based audience, though it’s not reporting box office grosses. Theatrical “is not the whole picture. I look at this as a one-year deal. All the way through,” says Jerramy Hainline, Versant’s EVP Digital Platforms & Ventures.
Fandango has already been orchestrating the release of non-traditional theatrical content for a few years, working with rights holders to screen WWE events, the Winter Olympics, a Spanish-language presentation of the FIFA World Cup in partnership with Telemundo, and Love Island USA.
The company launched in 2000 as a JV of big U.S. theater chains and venture capital firms. Comcast acquired it in 2007. Warner Bros Discovery is a minority shareholder. In 2024, Fandango absorbed the streaming and VOD service formerly known as Vudu, which Comcast bought in 2020. Called Fandango at Home, it dropped the “at Home” in July to unify its digital storefront and ticketing under the singular Fandango brand as it expanded its free, ad-supported content. Other projects include creating one unified app for ticketing and streaming and closer integration with sister company Rotten Tomatoes, and international growth. The Rotten Tomatoes app is currently available in Canada, the UK and Ireland.
Versant, which houses most of the cable networks formerly under NBCUniversal, has been moving swiftly to diversify its revenue away from challenged linear television. In a Q&A with Deadline, Hainline talks about the new film and the push to build Fandango into a key driver of its parent company’s digital strategy alongside the Comcast spinoff’s more widely covered and fast-growing Golf business.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
DEADLINE: Versant is an unusual hybrid company, spun off from Comcast with a large cable network portfolio and handful of digital businesses. What is the strategy?
JERRAMY HAINLINE: Linear cable is obviously a challenged business but it spins off a lot of cash. What’s important is how they fit in an ecosystem. Like Golf Channel. We took the linear television asset and built a digital transactional business with Golf Now and Golf Pass. When I started, 85% of the revenue was coming from the cable channel and that’s gone down to 50/50. The idea is to replicate that in Versant’s other verticals – finance, anchored by CNBC; news anchored by MS NOW; and entertainment and sports, like E! and USA Sports Network. Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes cross that entertainment vertical and the idea is to get them functioning better together.
DEADLINE: Fandango is venturing into theatrical distribution. Why now, and why House Of Worship?
HAINLINE: We’ve been putting content in theaters for several years. It started with the Olympics, the Paris opening ceremony. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, trying to get the USOPC and the IOC and NBCU on the same page. But we were able to pull it off. And people were like “Oh, there’s something here.” So we did the Penn State-University of Washington white-out game. We did something with Epic Games around a Fortnite Pro AM Series at USC’s Galen Center. Then we did a deal with Milan for the [2026] opening ceremony. We did World Cup with Telemundo this summer, which was very successful.
DEADLINE: And then?
HAINLINE: The phone starts to ring. People are like, “Hey, I got something. I can’t get distribution.” Or, “I have the rights to something, but I don’t know what to do next.” A person who we were already in business with called and said, “I’ve got these friends. They’ve got this great movie that was done a year ago, it’s never seen the light of day.” It was House of Worship. I watched it, I liked it a lot. So I said I bet I can find three dates for theaters interested in this. Fandango is, obviously, connected to 95% of theaters, and we have a history of doing this, and we have the infrastructure. They said great. I thought this will be interesting, because I want to try something new on a piece of content. I think there’s a business where I can take a piece of content for Fandango, I can put it in movie theaters, but then I can push it through our ecosystem down the entire life cycle of a film.
These artists have huge social media followings, I expect them to market it alongside of us, to push it on social.
Ultimately, Fandango is invested in movie theaters. We need movie theaters. And we need people to go to movie theaters. Otherwise, the people don’t need Fandango. My concern is am I partnering with exhibition? Am I partnering with studios and content creators to actually make this industry better and get people to go see movies? But theatrical is not the whole picture. I look at this as a one-year deal, all the way through. What were we able to do for niche content like this?
DEADLINE: What other content are you eyeing to drive to theaters?
HAINLINE: I’m thinking through it. I’m looking at who has what rights, whether that’s Bundesliga, LOVB [League One] Volleyball, WNBA, NASCAR. Do any of these things make sense to put into movie theaters, to distribute? I look where we have relationships. We were able to bring [Peacock’s] Love Island USA Casa Amor to 20 markets and it sold out very quickly. I’d love to have Real Housewives, that would be amazing. And I think we’ve done enough work and relationship-building with rights holders and content creators and studios that they listen to us. Now, when we come to them, they know we’re not making this up. Conversations are much more positive today than they were two years ago when I tried to have them.
Peacock’s ‘Love Island USA’
Ben Symons / Peacock
DEADLINE: Ticketing is still the lion’s share of business. Has it been squeezed by the rise of loyalty programs at many circuits?
HAINLINE: Obviously yes, it’s ticket sales. I don’t think it’s any secret. We have a convenience fee. We have an ad-sales business. We’re huge partners with studios. We have our own fan club business with a monthly fee. But I don’t view [other programs] as competitive at all. I have these conversations with all the big circuits. I want to sell their loyalty programs. I would love to insert people into their loyalty program because I still believe there’s a place for Fandango, and I still believe that people are going to come book with us because we make it much easier to find what you want to see and where you want to see it. And when you come to Fandango and you’re a member of a particular loyalty program of a particular exhibitor, we treat you exactly the same. If your fees are waived on their website, when you come to Fandango, your fees are waived with us. We want to be an extension of what exhibition is doing. I don’t ever want to be viewed as a competitor.
DEADLINE: You mentioned AVOD, how has that evolved?
HAINLINE: We’ve always had AVOD. It was branded as Fandango At Home, and we basically rebranded it just straight Fandango. That’s just in July, and what you’ll see is it’s way more prominent when you go to Fandango. AVOD is right there. It’s free. But you can still transact with TVOD. You can still buy premium titles. So you can rent, buy, watch, and also do a ton of stuff for free. So, yes, we obviously live and die with box office, but I’m very bullish on what we’re doing and how we’re growing. We’re not just selling movie tickets. We’re trying to do a lot of different things, and that’s delivered success for us that we wouldn’t have had if we just sold movie tickets.