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:

[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".

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.

People who start the comment in the subject box ar

[Anonymous Coward]

e retards.

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.

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.