This was about 20 years ago screen bounce It started as a passion project, a simple website largely created by fans of movies and the sci-fi genre who had no experience in web design. This was the era of Lord of the Rings The beginning of the trilogy and battlestar galactica, This was before Christopher Nolan brought back Batman, before Michael Bay adapted the Transformers into live-action, and before Marvel Studios made its own movies. Blockbuster was at its peak!
Launching with tagline “Sci-fi, TV and film news without sugar coating,” screen bounce He was an early entrant into the film and television blogosphere when founder Vic Holtreman conceived it as a place to share his raw thoughts with a few friends. Who could have predicted that it would survive for decades and become one of the largest entertainment publications on the planet?
What have you done screen bounce What was unique since its inception was that it never shared “news”, instead sharing it with insight, analysis and the editorial eye of writers who grew up passionate about the content they covered. Were. There was real discussion to be had and that’s how I – and eventually millions of others – discovered screenant.com, first as a reader when rumors were swirling about which mutants would appear. x-men 4, would like lost Josh Holloway playing the Gambit? Of course he didn’t, but I commented on that article while participating in a lively discussion in 2007.
A Brief History of Screen Rant
Screen Rant first went live on November 13, 2003
Enjoy a gallery of screenshots of Screen Rant’s homepage designs from each year over the past 20 years!
Before social media became the preferred way to share information, ideas, promotion and criticism, screen bounce There was a lively comments section for over a decade. Even actors, producers, directors and others from the industry took part. Sometimes it got us into trouble, sometimes it got us a scoop or an invitation to an event. For me, it provided a platform to procrastinate during graduate studies. When I should have been completing a thesis for my master’s degree in economics, I was instead commenting with other regulars all day long on my favorite film blog, screenant.com, and that got me recruited as a writer. When the site owner emailed me to convince me to join.
I got my masters and a few days later, I was presented with a sample of Clive Owen’s trailer. international It was published as a lively article, I was surprised. A few months later I became an editor and co-founded and built a spinoff website, Gamerant.com. Little did I know then that this would become a career for me and eventually hundreds of others.
“The moment it stops being enjoyable is the moment we should stop doing it.”
screen bounce It was small then but was growing month by month and was performing its best. In 2007 it had a few thousand readers per month. “The moment it stops being enjoyable is the moment we should stop doing it,” Vic Holtreman explained in an email to the team how to encourage writing for the right reasons. A year later, my own daily articles were reaching hundreds of thousands. 2 million users visited screenant.com in 2008. More than triple the next year, and more than triple the year after that. The pattern continued and with the growth of the site, came the most amazing opportunities for the brand, from being invited to set visits and the occasional premiere to attending press junkets and talking to talent on camera.
screen bounce He was becoming a major player, and as his readership and team grew in size, his potential could no longer be ignored. Some of us quit our day jobs in 2011 to focus on screen bounce, Screen Rant’s first editor-in-chief, Kofi Outlaw, stepped in and helped redefine reviews and editorial standards. I was helping run Screen Rant and Game Rant and focusing on the business side of things and PR, and jumped into the next one. Kofi’s classmate Ben Kendrick joined me at Game Rant and eventually moved to Screen Rant and became a managing editor, and Anthony Ocasio became the site’s first full-time television employee.
The four of us also hosted it screen rant underground The podcast ran over the years and many amazing writers joined the site’s team. A Spiritual Successor Podcast, Total GicleeSRU launched with originals Rob Keyes and Ben Kendrick, with Andrew Dias and Hannah Shaw-Williams also joining.
Come 2014, screen bounce And other independent film blogs were taking over online space from traditional outlets. Valnet, Inc. saw an opportunity and acquired the site in February, 2015. “The combination of the expertise of the existing Screen Rant team and the resources offered by Valnet will only yield great things,” Hassan Yusuf, CEO and co-founder of Valnet Inc., said at the time. Valnet was able to invest support and resources and accelerate growth, and everything changed. Screen Rant was part of a growing network and had an office, which was a true base of operations. I was able to launch a gaming division the same year, followed by a comics division in 2016, and Valnet helped me launch and grow properly screen rant Video operations, including our beloved Pitch Meeting series.
screen bounce The number of users reached 100 million when it became independent in 2014, and Valenet, Inc. Under the ownership and operation of , it has since reached more than half a billion readers per year, thanks to its team of all-star leaders. For example, Alex Leadbeater took over our features team and eventually our entire core content operations in 2018 and helped develop the site along with Simon Gallagher, Molly Freeman, Mansoor Mithaiwala, Andrew Dias, Lara Jackson, Emily Biondo, James Hunt . something that has spent years developing screen bounce And mentored hundreds of others along the way. Andrew Dias first started in 2010 when I recruited him gamerant, and currently runs Screen Rant’s comics team, helping it expand into anime and manga. Simon Gallagher helped expand our film and television feature coverage and really helped with all aspects of the operation. Lara Jackson, recently recruited by me in 2021, leads all of our gaming teams and is also helping to improve the content operations of the entire site. The list goes on and on…
Screen Rant expanded beyond film and television into gaming in 2015 when it spun off from Game Rant, followed by comics in 2016. A few years later, Valnet, Inc. also acquired Game Rant, while Screen Rant continued to expand into reality TV and later anime.
screen bounce You’ve published thousands of reviews and interviews and shared many wild experiences, including flying stunt planes Top Gun: Maverick and racing for mclaren hobbs and shaw, We’ve visited Pixar, Lucasfilm, Laika Studios, Weta Workshop, Skywalker Ranch, Illumination, and countless production studios and game developers around the world to deliver exclusive and original reporting, and yes, we’ve definitely had some fun along the way. .
Arnold Schwarzenegger took us for a drive in his tank and we presented the first footage of the world’s largest great white shark with National Geographic. We had Hawkeye’s bow and Captain America’s shield civil war Set up and went to the Batjet hangar Justice League set. We had lunch with Zoe Saldana in green Gamora makeup next to an alien spaceship, talked to Harrison Ford on location in Plaza Blanca, New Mexico for this. Cowboys and AliensSpent time with The Rock playing GI Joe, and watched Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine plow snow with his claws out.
Our reviews can be found on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, OpenCritic and we are judges for The Game Awards. We are quoted daily on TV, online, and in every digital video game store. We were in a Super Bowl ad, had our logo in Times Square, and helped host the Marvel Studios Comic-Con panel, where avengers: secret wars Was declared. We have a lot to be proud of and even more to eat!
What does the future look like for Screen Rant?
New features and content coming!
Twenty years is a long time and in more ways than we can list here, we’re just getting started. Over the past few weeks we’ve launched a brand new account system screen bounce Where readers can log in for a better experience and exclusive features. We’ve also launched a new newsletter that already has over 100,000 users, and starting last week, readers can set their personal preferences and choose what type of content they want straight to their inbox , whether it’s anime or gaming features, Star Wars content, Marvel or DC news, and anything in between.
Create a Screen Rant account!
We’re creating new types of video content, with more in development, and new podcasts coming in the near future. Our goal is to continually improve the ScreenRant.com experience and look forward to sharing more.
Thanks for reading and watching! Here’s to the next milestone!