Time Warner subsidiary Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. has acquired Flixster. Flixster is a social network that is centered around movies. Through the acquisition, Warner Bros. also gains possession of the valuable Rotten Tomatoes brand. News Corp. sold Rotten Tomatoes to Flixster in exchange for cash and equity last year.

The Warner Bros. movie studio is adding digital movie rentals on Facebook. The first movie being offered for rent is The Dark Knight. You can rent the movie using Facebook Credits from The Dark Knight fan page. The cost per rental is 30 Facebook Credits ($3). After renting the movie, the Facebook user will have less than 48 hours to watch the movie. The movie can be watched in full screen.

Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc. CEO Barry Meyer said that his company decided not to join Apple for the 99 cents iTunes TV show rentals deal because they believed the price was too low and “would have hurt sales of full seasons.”

Warner Brothers has acquired MMO gaming studio Turbine, Inc. Turbine is the largest privately-held online gaming studio in North America. Turbine was founded in 1994 and operates in Boston, Massachusetts. Some of Turbine’s most popular games include Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron Unlimited and The Lord of the Rings Online.

Blockbuster has signed deals with Fox and Sony. The deal is very similar to a deal that Blockbuster already has signed with Warner. Blockbuster’s deal with Fox, Sony, and Warner ensures that they will be able to rent new titles on the day they are released along with mail orders.

Blockbuster will also get favorable payment terms from the studios. Blockbuster has a plan to lower operating costs by about $200 million too. The movie studios made deals with Redbox and Netflix to allow new movies only after 28 days from the release date. [TechCrunch]

Warner Brothers Home Entertainment has bought a majority ownership in Rocksteady Studios. Rocksteady is the developer of the video game “Batman: Arkham Asylum.” Rockstead was founded in 2004 and is rumored to have sold 68% of the overall company to Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers bought another gaming company called TT Games in 2007. TT Games was known for developing video games involving LEGOs, such as “LEGO Star Wars.” Warner Brothers also owns Snowblind Studios, the creator the of “The Lord of the Rings” video games. Midway Games’ assets were purchased by Warner Brothers recently too. [Variety]

In February, Midway filed for bankruptcy and then the company decided to use cash collateral to keep their company alive. Looks like the company will not need to hang by a financial string anymore because the Mortal Kombat company was bought by Warner Brothers for $33 million.

As part of the deal, Warner Brothers will get most of Midway’s assets.  And some of the legal disputes existing between creditors, senior executives, and major stakeholder Mark Thomas have been resolved.

Some of the companies that objected to the Warner Brothers sale include Hollywood production company Threshold Entertainment, which produced two Mortal Kombat movies.  Tigon Studios Inc., a company founded by Vin Diesel also objected to the sale.  Tigon and Midway both worked on a video game called Wheelman which starred Diesel.  All of the objections were resolved.

[via ChicagoTribune]

LEGOs have been used to make an oversized Nintendo DSi and now it is being used in rock and roll video games.  The new game is a collaboration between Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, Harmonix, and MTV Games.

Some of the songs included in the LEGO version of Rock Band will include Song 2 (Blur), Kung Fu Fighting (Carl Douglas), Boys and Girls (Good Charlotte), and So What (Pink).

“Players will be able to create their own Lego Rock Band style as they customize their minifigure avatars, band and entourage, including roadies, managers and crew,” stated the companies in a press release.  The LEGO Rock Band game will work with music controllers and Rock Band instruments.