Some in Hollywood think Rotten Tomatoes is too influential (NY Times)

Attacked by Rotten Tomatoes

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood had a horrible summer.

Between the first weekend in May and Labor Day, a sequel-stuffed period that typically accounts for 40 percent of annual ticket sales, box office revenue in North America totaled $3.8 billion, a 15 percent decline from the same span last year. To find a slower summer, you would have to go back 20 years. Business has been so bad that America’s three biggest theater chains have lost roughly $4 billion in market value since May.

Ready for the truly alarming part? Hollywood is blaming a website: Rotten Tomatoes.

“I think it’s the destruction of our business,” Brett Ratner, the director, producer and film financier, said at a film festival this year.

Some studio executives privately concede that a few recent movies — just a few — were simply bad. Flawed marketing may have played a role in a couple of other instances, they acknowledged, along with competition from Netflix and Amazon.

But most studio fingers point toward Rotten Tomatoes, which boils down hundreds of reviews to give films “fresh” or “rotten” scores on its Tomatometer. The site has surged in popularity, attracting 13.6 million unique visitors in May, a 32 percent increase above last year’s total for the month, according to the analytics firm comScore.

Studio executives’ complaints about Rotten Tomatoes include the way its Tomatometer hacks off critical nuance, the site’s seemingly loose definition of who qualifies as a critic and the spread of Tomatometer scores across the web. Last year, scores started appearing on Fandango, the online movie ticket-selling site, leading to grousing that a rotten score next to the purchase button was the same as posting this message: You are an idiot if you pay to see this movie.

Mr. Ratner’s sentiment was echoed almost daily in studio dining rooms all summer, although not for attribution, for fear of giving Rotten Tomatoes more credibility. Over lunch last month, the chief executive of a major movie company looked me in the eye and declared flatly that his mission was to destroy the review-aggregation site.​

 

Could rotten tomatoes be sued or are they in titled to their opinion?

 

The article would have so much more credibility if they had quoted a director who wasn't a talentless hack.

 

I think it does more to hold up Hollywood, then it does to bring it down. I don't pay any attention when a film rates highly, I can't imagine how bad a film has to be to rate badly.

 

In total agreement! Here's a list on some of the marvelous films he's left us with.

...like the same dog taking a dump in your front yard every day!

1990 Whatever Happened to Mason Reese Short film Director/Producer/Writer
1997 Money Talks Feature film Director
1998 Rush Hour Feature film Director
2000 The Family Man Feature film Director
2001 Rush Hour 2 Feature film Director
Double Take Feature film Producer
2002 Red Dragon Feature film Director
Paid in Full Feature film Producer
2004 After the Sunset Feature film Director/Producer (Uncredited)
2005 Prison Break (Pilot episode) TV series Director
Santa's Slay Feature film Producer
2006 X-Men: The Last Stand Feature film Director
Running Scared Feature film Producer
End Game Direct-to-video film Executive Producer
Becker Hargrove, Inc. Short film Producer
2007 Entourage TV Series Cameo: S.3 Ep. 19
Rush Hour 3 Feature film Director
Code Name: The Cleaner Feature film Producer
2008 21 Feature film Executive Producer
New York, I Love You Feature film Director
2010 Kites: The Remix Feature film Producer/Editor
Skyline Feature film Producer
Mother's Day Feature film Producer
2011 Tower Heist Feature film Director
Horrible Bosses Feature film Producer
2012 Mirror Mirror Feature film Producer
2013 Movie 43 Feature film Director of one segment
2014 Jersey Boys Feature film Executive Producer
Hercules Feature film Director/Producer
Horrible Bosses 2 Feature film Producer
2015 Chuck Norris vs. Communism Documentary Producer
Truth Feature film Producer
The Audition Short film Producer
The Revenant Feature film Executive Producer
2016 True Crimes Feature film Producer
Before the Flood Documentary Producer
Rules Don't Apply Feature film Producer
TBA Hong Kong Phooey Feature film Producer

 

Poor Hollywood.

 

"It's not fair our accelerating crappiness is common knowledge."

 

I tend to agree with their ratings. That is why it has soared in popularity. Sorry Hollywood.

 

I love Rotten Tomatoes so much.

 

I want everyone to check out this review for Richie Rich.

Richie Rich

Surprise! It's from Rotten Tomatoes of course.

 

Actually, the problem isn't Rotten Tomatoes, it's the way people use it. They check to see if the heavily advertised film is any good, discover it has a terrible rating, and stay home. What they need to do is look to see what films have high ratings whether they have heard of them or not. How many of you saw Wolf Warrior 2 in the theater? It was, in my opinion, the best action film in a decade and shamed dopey Hollywood tripe like The Fast and The Furious? Or Baby Driver? Or Brigsby Bear?...all novel, original films that didn't have multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns, all better than 70% on the TomatoMeter (93% for Baby Driver!)

It's not the fault of Rotten Tomatoes that people are using it wrong!

 

If some think it has too much influence, they are doing their job.

 

Most people also use it wrong in that they take a higher RT % to mean that it's a better film. What the RT % actually measures is the percentage of positive reviews. So you're more likely to enjoy a film with a higher RT %, but there's a possibility you could still enjoy another film even more that has a lower RT %, based on personal taste, it's just less likely. RT doesn't actually aggregate the review scores, which is difficult to do since a lot of publications don't actually give a score. Metacritic does aggregate the scores.

 

I read the films info, not the ratings. For example:

MOVIE INFO
The Wolf Warrior is back, bigger and badder than ever, in this action-packed sequel to the 2015 blockbuster hit. With his career in tatters, China's deadliest Special Forces operative has settled into a quiet life on the sea. But when he crosses paths with a sadistic band of mercenaries terrorizing innocent civilians, he must reaffirm his duty as a soldier and save the day once again. Fists (and bullets, tanks, missiles and much more) will fly in this adrenaline-fueled tour de force of bravura action filmmaking, all culminating into a climatic battle between the Wolf Warrior and the mercenary leader (Frank Grillo, Captain America: The Winter Solider and Captain America: Civil War).

It's not a review, just an explanation of what the film is about.
That alone tells me that it is a film I would never be interested in or want to see.

I don't think I'm "using it wrong".

 

Rotten Tomatoes is useful for the short quotes they pull out of the different reviews. I read through those to figure out if I agree with the critic.

 

If you don't like action movies, you're not likely to enjoy Wolf Warrior 2. If you do, it's an excellent action movie.

My point remains, people are checking RT to see if what has been advertised to them is crap or not, rather than checking what is good in the theaters.

 

OT:
The title "Wolf Warrior 2" itself tells me it's an action movie! Not anything I'm remotely interested in, but the synopsis sounds like fun if you're inclined to like action movies!

Like the news, do a little research before you make a decision. Then you can judge for yourself when you go in.

 

They said my terrible movie was terrible! Wah!

 

That's the best upcoming movie I've heard about all month!

 

In my parts, people don't pay much heed to Rotten Tomatoes, and critics in general are subject to ridicule and laughter. To largely blame the site's scores as the reason for box-office failures, is ridiculous, and acts like people are incapable of making their own choices. You're not making money, because you're not making anything people want to see. Not to mention, a lot of people I know will hold off on seeing a movie they're on the fence about, until it comes to Netflix or Amazon Prime (and many of them do). The movie-going experience is dying, and execs just need to accept that.

 

Well, I do like "Horrible Bosses"...

 

The first one; yes. The second one sucked.

 

Wow!