Movie Studios Are Blaming Rotten Tomatoes For Killing Movies No One Wants To See (qz.com)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch were never going to be critical darlings. Both movies led the domestic box office to its worst Memorial Day weekend showing in nearly 20 years. Quartz adds: In the fallout, are Hollywood producers blaming the writers? The actors? Themselves? (Of course not.) No, they are blaming Rotten Tomatoes. They say the movie-review site, which forces critics to assign either a rotten or fresh tomato to each title when submitting reviews, regardless of the nuances of their critiques, poisoned viewers against the films before they were released. "Insiders close to both films blame Rotten Tomatoes, with Pirates 5 and Baywatch respectively earning 32% and 19% Rotten. The critic aggregation site increasingly is slowing down the potential business of popcorn movies. Pirates 5 and Baywatch aren't built for critics but rather general audiences, and once upon a time these types of films -- a family adventure and a raunchy R-rated comedy -- were critic-proof. Many of those in the industry severely question how Rotten Tomatoes computes the its ratings, and the fact that these scores run on [the movie-ticket buying site] Fandango (which owns RT) is an even bigger problem," Deadline reported. [...] The site has a separate score that measures audience reception, which it displays next to the critic rating. And quite a few smell what The Rock is cooking -- 70% of Baywatch viewers on Rotten Tomatoes said they liked it. But the critic score is what many people look to when deciding whether to spend their hard-earned money at the cinema. Also read: Hollywood Producer Blames Rotten Tomatoes For Convincing People Not To See His Movie.

Comments

Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Waaaah, we can't trick people into paying money to see these movies anymore by showing deceiving trailers with all the good parts. Waaaahhh.

Re:Translation:

[Anubis IV]

More or less. Prior to Rotten Tomatoes, our options for determining whether a film was worth seeing in theaters were all hit-and-miss. Most of us relied heavily on the tone and nature of the film's marketing to make those decisions, putting the control predominately in the hands of the studios. Every time they marketed a dud as a stud in order to profit from the gap between when a movie was released and when word of mouth spread about how bad it was, they made it clear that they valued our money more than our satisfaction.

Rotten Tomatoes changed all of that by providing consistently credible scores from day one, which, for most of us, were a much better indicator for determining whether a movie was worth seeing in theaters. They're not perfect, but they're so much more reliable than what we had before that many of us have started checking Rotten Tomatoes before heading to the theaters for anything other than a sure thing. Naturally, the studios are displeased that they can't profit on that gap between the release date and when the public catches on to how bad the film actually is.

Couple that with cheap rentals like Redbox or iTunes (as opposed to the expensive days of Blockbuster), subscription streaming like Netflix, and the dropping prices of big-screen TVs, and it's no surprise that people are skipping the theater experience when the film will be just as good/bad in a few months/years at home. When talking about upcoming films, my wife and I have even started saying, "That's a 'wait for Redbox' one" or "Maybe if it shows up on Netflix streaming someday".

Re:Translation:

[Grishnakh]

Yep, this is Hollywood complaining yet again that they don't control all the information. I still remember when "Gigli" came out and flopped, and Hollywood was pissed off that moviegoers were using their phones to text all their friends about how bad the movie was, saying they shouldn't be allowed to do that because it "disrupts our carefully crafted marketing".

Re:Translation:

[MightyMartian]

Huh? I was watching Siskel & Ebert 30 years ago when looking for the good versus bad movies. Movie critics have been around almost as long as movie, and all Rotten Tomatoes did was bring a number of the better known or well-syndicated ones together to sort of give a statistical scoring.

Also as old as movie critics is studios blaming movie critics for their shitty movies bombing. It's a tired complaint. Anyone who seriously thought a Baywatch reboot or yet another Johnny Depp pirate film were going to be smash hits ought to be forced into early retirement.

Re: Translation:

[meta-monkey]

And the market is showing that the RT scores are well calibrated. If it's got a low critic score and a decently high audience score, that's a "wait for Redbox." And that's exactly what's happening. I'll probably see Pirates of the Caribbean at some point, but I'm not sure not going to the theater for it. Guardians of the Galaxy 2, though, was well worth the price of admission.

Re:Translation:

[DuckDodgers]

You're overthinking this. The real reason I'm not watching Baywatch or Pirates of the Caribbean 5 is that I spent a lot of money to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and I'm about to spend money to watch Wonder Woman this weekend and The Mummy next weekend.

If either of those films or even the King Arthur disaster had come out in January or February, the only popcorn junky cheesefest competition was XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. They would probably have done twice as well then versus what they'll get now. As it is, April to September is neck deep in silly adventure and action movies. I'm going to skip plenty of films I might otherwise watch just because I don't have the time and money to catch them all.

I don't even look at Rotten Tomatoes.

Re: Translation:

[MightyMartian]

For chrissakes, a quick review of Ebert's Top Films shows while he clearly loved Werner Herzog, he was also a big Spielberg fan. There's nothing artsy about Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark or Jaws, and yet both these films were among Ebert's favorite films ever made. For goodness sake, he even put Planes, Trains and Automobiles on that list (and justifiably so, it is an incredibly good film).

It's never their fault, of course

[DontBeAMoran]

Never mind that all they're able to do is either come up with sequels or prequels, or movies with brain-dead characters and insipid stories filled with impossible computer-generated action scenes.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[DickBreath]

Let's not forget about impossible physics as part of the plot.

It's not only sequels and prequels, but poorly conceived remakes of ancient TV shows that were made in some earlier millennium. Or horrible remakes of classic sci fi (The Day The Earth Stood Still). Moves based on books that have no resemblance to the book the movie is supposedly based on.

Action movies with adolescent dialog.

New prequels of decades old movies, where the prequel isn't consistent with what it is a prequel to. Or changes the characters in the original movie -- or makes liars out of the heroes.

Movies stretched into categories they don't belong in, as a form of false advertising. Clue: if it has vampires, warewolves, or magic, it probably isn't Sci Fi.

The problem is that new movies rarely have anything new. There are a few good ones. But very few.

I wouldn't mind a really good remake of a classic movie. (Forbidden Planet anyone?) Or a good prequel.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[ranton]

Never mind that all they're able to do is either come up with sequels or prequels, or movies with brain-dead characters and insipid stories filled with impossible computer-generated action scenes.

None of that even prevents a movie from being great. There are plenty of great movies based on previous IP, and even great movies with little to no story.

I strongly disagree with the submitter's comment: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch were never going to be critical darlings." That is bullshit. The first Pirate of the Caribbean movie had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 79%, so obviously a good movie can be made with this subject matter. And 21 Jump Street had a score of 85%, so obviously a movie adaption of an 80's/90's TV show can be a great movie.

Either of these movies could have been great with a 70+ Rotten Tomato score. But they would have had to be good.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[pr0fessor]

I didn't even look at the rotten tomatoes rating and still wasn't interested in either of those movies because they have already been done to death.

Very little fault of Rotten Tomatoes

[parallel_prankster]

While I agree there are some good movies that have poor Rotten Tomatoes ratings which makes me wonder if I missed a movie because of RT reviews, I would still consider them to be a pretty good indicator of movie quality. The studios are just mad that RT tells me what I need to know about crappy movies before I spend my money on them!

Re:Very little fault of Rotten Tomatoes

[Freischutz]

While I agree there are some good movies that have poor Rotten Tomatoes ratings which makes me wonder if I missed a movie because of RT reviews, I would still consider them to be a pretty good indicator of movie quality. The studios are just mad that RT tells me what I need to know about crappy movies before I spend my money on them!

I never look at critic's scores, just whether the audience liked it. Critics have a tendency to be windbags...

translated:

[Anonymous Coward]

we cant make sub par unfunny comedies and lame predictable dramas any more because people tell other people they suck! Give writers more creative freedom and things may turn around.

Re:translated:

[DickBreath]

They can't give writers more creative freedom. Nor directors.

The problem is they are locked into a formula. If they're going to spend $500 Million to make a movie, then they have got to guarantee it will be a success and recoup the investment.

So they can't take risks. Can't be innovative. A movie must follow one of Hollywood's formulas for success. And this is the very thing making movies bad.

Here's another idea: How about a movie that doesn't cost $500 Million to make? Don't get a-list actors. Could there possibly be very good but unknown actors? Don't make the movie effects heavy. Do have a good story -- oh but that would require giving more creative freedom, which brings us back to the start.

Sobs

[DarkOx]

Boo hoo, I can't compete in the market place with a terrible product by taking advantage of the customers inferior access to information about it.

Damn internet. Its so unfair

Re:Sobs

[DickBreath]

Dang Netflix! They can make a short one season TV series for 1/20 to 1/40 the cost of a major motion picture, yet it is more engaging than the movie. Each episode leaves you wanting to watch the next. It's just so unfair!

I didn't go, but not because of Rotten Tomatoes

[Quirkz]

I looked up movie times on Google. It had a sidebar with a metacritic score that seemed low. I followed that and saw actual reviews, which were also (in the aggregate) pretty bad. Are all of those equally at fault?

This is for Pirates 5, by the way. Part of the reason I looked is because Pirates 4 was already really disappointing compared to the first three, and Depp has been in a death spiral for years. That and the appearance of yet more dead/undead pirates (how many different ways is that even possible) in the previews had me seriously worried. If all of that hadn't already been hanging over the movie, I wouldn't have bothered to second-guess my impulse to just go down and watch it.

I'll still see it, by the way, just put it off until it's on Redbox.

Make something worth watching

[RotateLeftByte]

and the problem will go away.

Simple really but Hollywood would rather make endless sequels and prequels.
Is it little wonder that I gave up on going to watch them years ago, there really was very little worth watching that wasn't full of bangs, explosions and car chases OR a stupid plotless romcom.
Where are films like "North by Northwest" these days?

Its the symptom, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Metareview sites such as Rotten Tomatoes have become so successful and influential because they've proven to be a reliable means for many people to avoid seeing shitty movies. Their methodology is of course imperfect and many movies fall through the cracks, but nonetheless I think Rotten Tomatoes wouldn't be successful if there wasn't a demand for it, and the reason that demand exists is that consumers are tired of the blatant abuses of movie producers phoning it in for easy cash outs and audiences carrying the burden.

It takes a wonder woman...

[__aaclcg7560]

Wonder Woman has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What studio is going to complain about that?

http://www.thewrap.com/wonder-woman-has-a-higher-rotten-tomatoes-score-than-any-other-dc-or-marvel-movie-so-far/

Re:It takes a wonder woman...

[SuiteSisterMary]

You know, I was thinking something like this just the other night. If WW does well, people will complain that it's just because of the gender angle. If WW does poorly....people will complain it's just because of the gender angle.

People who start the comment in the subject box ar

[Anonymous Coward]

e retards.

There is some merit here

[chispito]

Review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are incredibly useful... yet also promote groupthink and over simplify the value of a film. I've really enjoyed some films that most critics panned, and I've really disliked films that most critics adored. By distilling the value of a film down to a fresh/rotten percentage (much like Siskel and Ebert's thumbs up or down system of yore) it encourages people to stop there and not read the reviews to find out what does or doesn't appeal to the reviewers.

Now, applying this logic to the apparent failure of yet another 'Pirates' movie seems like a major stretch. As for Baywatch, I don't know.

One small problem

[Daetrin]

I'm entirely unsympathetic to movie studios' distress over the idea that consumers are using the tools available to make informed choices. However if Rotten Tomatoes is able to sink movies with bad reviews why are Michael Bay's Transformers movies still a thing that exists?

Same as last one

[bill_mcgonigle]

32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The previous Pirates movie also got 32% and grossed over a billion dollars.

http://screenrant.com/worst-re...

Re:You sure it's rotten tomatos?

[Archangel Michael]

The problem with Toxic Feminism is that it views as toxic anything masculine, unless it is a woman with balls the size of Bayonne. The problem I have with this, is that it doesn't ever embrace the true strengths of women as virtuous on their own merit. The unreal expectation that a woman can bear the part of a man, with exceptional strength, skill and agility is part of the problem, short of the superhero genre.

There are rare exceptions, where a strong woman character fits the script, the genre and doesn't go overboard with the Machismo Woman character. I think the original Alien movie makes a great example. But the whole movie wasn't about a bad ass woman going to town, it was about a normal woman going to town. The power of two "mother" figures out to protect their "young". Classic play missed by the feminists, and douchebag men equally, because they are overtly looking at things completely wrong.

There are lots of other strong characters built around women, and it is sad to see them play second fiddle to Wolverine movies. Not that those were unwatchable, but Black Widow (Avengers) probably needs her own movie, where we can see her full skillset, not just her badass fighting techniques.

But we get Wonderwoman so .... there is that.

Movie tax

[OrangeTide]

We should all pay a special movie tax to the government, even if we don't see any films. Then redistribute that money to Hollywood, even if they make bad films. Because we as a society should bend over backwards to support failing business models that cannot adapt to change.

Cons: we pay an unnecessary tax.
Pros: we don't have to actually waste our time watching the bad films.