Netflix Executives Say 'Bright' Success Proves Film Critics Are 'Disconnected From Mass Appeal' (indiewire.com)

Last month, movie critics slammed David Ayer and Will Smith's Netflix tentpole "Bright" movie. At present, it has less than 30 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But Netflix executives aren't worried. From a report on IndieWire: The abysmal reviews couldn't stop "Bright" from becoming a humongous hit on Netflix and earning a sequel. [...] According to both Netlfix bosses, "Bright's" success is proof that film critics don't matter as much when they're trying to tap into a global audience. "Critics are an important part of the artistic process, but [they are] pretty disconnected from the commercial prospects of a film," chief content officer Sarandos said. "[Film critics] speak to specific audiences who care about quality, or how objectively good or bad a movie is -- not the masses who are critical for determining whether a film makes money." CEO Hastings, chimed in to add "The critics are pretty disconnected from the mass appeal." Do ratings on movie websites matter? It's not a new topic of discussion. Last year, legendary director, producer and screenwriter Martin Scorsese said he believes real movie goers don't care about Rotten Tomatoes. But some people, including especially in the same room as Scorsese, disagree. Brett Ratner, the Rush Hour director/producer who threw the financial weight of his RatPac Entertainment behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice blamed Rotten Tomatoes for convincing people to not watch his movie. Along the same lines, DC fans were angry over Rotten Tomatoes's Justice League ratings .

Comments

I only say Star Trek Discovery

[ReneR]

praised by critics, not loved by trekkies, fans, the audience: https://www.rottentomatoes.com... 82% vs. 55%

Re:Critics are pretty worthless

[Gaygirlie]

This is exactly why I look at the scores the general populace give, not critics' scores: I find that critics' scores very rarely match my own tastes and while my tastes don't always match the general populace's tastes, they are still leaps and bounds more accurate than the critics'. Many movies/TV-shows I've liked have gotten poor critic-scores on IMDB/Metacritic/etc., but gotten good scores from regular people and vice versa. In fact, I deliberately go and avoid critic-scores these days.

Hate Netflix autoplay

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Every time I log in, most of the screen is taken up by this huge video that auto plays. It said "Bright" or something. It was so visually jarring and there is a screaming audio track on it too. I have begun to mute audio before opening Netflix, and close my eyes and press down button to escape the visual assault.

Then the last viewed menu comes up. It wont be long before some idiot decides it would be a cool thing to autoplay all the icons to create "visual appeal" and interest.

With that kind of intrusive access to the customers it would be a big surprise if it is NOT a hit.

If the movie is really bad, and if they forced half their clients to watch it, they have spent some of the good will. It won't be long before people start leaving Netflix. You can not compare movies viewed after paying for parking, tickets and popcorn to auto played video shown for free.

Critics influencing critics

[PhrostyMcByte]

I sometimes get a feeling that once one critic badmouths a movie, it sets of a chain reaction.

Other critics will parrot the majority. Some smart guy says a movie is bad because of X... well, I'm a smart guy too, so I should probably point that out as well. And it just spirals out of control, with a movie getting progressively worse in each review.

Or at least, other critics will look at a film through a new lens. They'll know someone said X, so they'll spend the entire movie looking for examples of X.

Being unbiased is hard. It's got to be even harder now than ever, now that everyone is connected via very immediate social networks. And you have a lot of amateurs on Youtube/etc. who are early enough in their careers that they haven't figured out their biases yet.

I actually thought Bright was okay. It's not a smart movie, but it's not dumb either. It was entertaining. It tried something new and had some flaws, but nothing major.

I'll say it -- I enjoyed it a lot

[DumbSwede]

I guess I’m part of the great unwashed masses, because I enjoyed Bright quite a bit. Perhaps because I didn’t view it as a standalone movie, but the introduction of a fantasy series.

Not sure what critics where expecting. The race and inequality allegories are not subtle, but they touch on a lot of issues. You could read too much into the privileged class of elves. Do they represent Jews? More likely they are intended to represent white privilege and/or the one-percent’ers. Do some races have innate advantages (brightness) that drive inequality? This is a harder question to answer. Very few humans or orcs have the Bright (magic) ability in the movie. In some ways the movie is very predictable, as a plus or minus it raises uncomfortable social questions (without resolution). Perhaps some of its low score is because it fails to give the perhaps mandatory expected PC answers that Hollywood’s seems to demand.

I found the obvious racial stereotypes the second Star Wars trilogy harder to overlook because they weren’t trying to make any comment about racial inequality, but just playing to stereotypes out of laziness and/or carelessness (hopefully not malice).

In general I find I usually agree with the critics scores more so than the audience scores, so this one surprised me. I suspect this is a movie that for whatever reason is liked or hated by many with little in between. Since critics have to watch all movies it gets a low score. People inclined to like fantasy and action movies self select in going to and giving a rating to this movie. Largely I think if you raise social issues, critics expect some kind suggested social change, whether realized by the protagonists or not.