Can a brief audio snippet help Fandango close ticketing deals? The service will test that theory with its first-ever movie audio integration for Amazon’s Alexa voice service tied to superhero pic “Venom.”
Starting Monday (Oct. 1), when users activate the Fandango skill on Alexa-enabled devices to find showtimes for “Venom” at local theaters, the devices will play a special audio clip — a few lines of dialogue — from the film’s trailer. The Sony Pictures movie, starring Tom Hardy in the titular role, hits theaters Oct. 5.
“Venom” is among this fall’s most-anticipated movies, according to a Fandango survey of 1,000 moviegoers (coming in No. 3 after “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”). Hardy, in the dual Eddie Brock/Venom role, was among the top actors fans are most looking forward to seeing on the big screen this fall, after Rami Malek in “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
The Venom character made his first full appearance in Marvel Comics’ “The Amazing Spider-Man” in 1988 and made his movie debut in 2007 with Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3,” in which Brock/Venom was portrayed by Topher Grace.
The Fandango skill for Amazon Alexa lets users buy tickets by asking Alexa and the Fandango skill to discover new movies, showtimes and theater locations. To buy movie tickets with Alexa, users must have a Fandango VIP account (which is free to sign up for). Fandango’s Alexa skill has been available since early 2017.
Fandango, a unit of NBCUniversal, in addition to its core ticketing service also owns and operates MovieTickets.com, Flixster; Rotten Tomatoes; the Movieclips channel on YouTube; video on-demand service FandangoNow; the Fandango FanShop merchandise ecommerce site.