'Captain Marvel' Smashes Box Office Record, Laughs Off Review-Bombing Trolls (hollywoodreporter.com)

"With a $302 million international gross, Captain Marvel has earned $455 million overall to date, the largest ever global opening for a March release and the sixth highest of all-time," reports the Wrap. The superhero movie raked in $153 million just in America, reports Collider, "Suggesting that a sad, extremely vocal minority of idiots on the internet don't actually matter in the slightest."

They're referring to another Rotten Tomateos review-counting glitch Friday morning, as covered by the Hollywood Reporter: The Disney film had only been in theaters for hours on Friday when the female-driven superhero picture was torpedoed online via Rotten Tomatoes. As of 8 a.m., the film had more than 58,000 reviews. That is more than the total of audience score reviews for Avengers: Infinity War for its entire theatrical run.

Rotten Tomatoes explained in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter that a glitch was responsible for thousands of reviews showing up on the site when they shouldn't have. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it had included audience reviews given before the film was released, something which is no longer allowed.
Movieweb believes those pre-release reviews were generated by bots, suggesting a small handful of review-bombers who were attempting to amplify their impact. Yahoo Entertainment believes the attempted review-bombers were angry with the film's star "for, well, not giving a crap about what the trolls say. Perhaps that's the best superpower of all."

When asked about the attempt to review-bomb Captain Marvel, the film's star Brie Larson smilingly replied, "Oh... who cares?"

"Love what you love! Who cares what other people think?"

Comments

Spreading division is profitable I guess

[elrous0]

But it doesn't make society any better, does it? Bringing more and more anger and division to our pop culture is only hastening a very ugly future in which we are at open war over our racial, ethnic, and gender divisions.

I much preferred the Wonder Woman approach myself. Give us a great story and a great hero who unites us--not a propaganda piece that only ramps up the hate.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh bullshit. How could a movie in which every brown male was portrayed as a villain and every white male was presented as a flawless hero saving the day, possibly divide us?

Said every movie about terrorists and US cities made in the past 25 years

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[Darinbob]

The hate I see is only coming from the trolls. As for the movie, there's no propaganda in it anywhere, it's just a movie. Deal with it.

White males are not the most persecuted people on the planet yet there are a few who feel that they are under siege, and it's ludicrous. Why is this an issue? Have white males been underrepresented so much that they have to unleash their review-bot army to redress their ancient grievances? The video game industry wants to market to everyone, so of course lets add some games where the girl is the hero, or a minority, etc. So what? Why does that generate so much rage? Play a different game. Watch a different movie. Don't go into some holy war over something so stupid.

If white males actually were so underrepresented that you don't see white males in governments, no white males in movies as the stars, white males being underpaid, and so forth, then I can understand the anger. But white males are still on top - maybe not 100% of them, but certainly on average they're on top.

As for games - checking the Steam store just now for games on sale or being features or new releases, the use of white male figures in the marketing shots (where you can see faces) white males are well represented despite the video game industry actively trying to get a broader audience. And just googling for "new games" many of the images that do have females they're often underdressed or anime loli stereotypes. Checking gamestop upcoming releases, the featured game features a male (looking white but in Anime style so is probably Japanese).

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[PyroMosh]

The hero is potrayed as constantly having been kicked down and told she's not good enough, exclusively by comically-over-the-top sexist men.

Wait... you're telling me that a sci-fi / fantasy / capeshit property is using allegory to make social commentary?

This is unique and new in the history of storytelling. You should inform the press.

clumsy heavy-handed

In a property based on a comic book aimed at children? Really? You can't see it, but I assure you, I am making my shocked face.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[AmiMoJo]

Marvel didn't spread division. Some guys got upset over one quote out of context by the lead actress, that's it.

Expecting actors and anyone else involved to never have said anything to offend anyone ever is unrealistic and done purely to create drama and division. There are people trying to manufacture a backlash against people they consider to be "SJWs", but for all the noise they make most people really don't care.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[elrous0]

Marvel didn't spread division.

Having your star go on every talk show bragging about it being a feminist film, insisting on dividing her interviewers up by race and gender, and releasing it on International Women's Day are not suggestive of a studio "not looking to spread division." In fact, division seems to be the very cornerstone of their entire marketing campaign. Contrast that with the way DC marketed Wonder Woman and the almost universally positive reaction that film got, from fans of every political and social stripe.

I think Marvel knew exactly what they were doing. They're crassly playing on ugly social and political divisions, in hopes of it paying off in ticket sales. And sadly, initial box office results suggest that it worked.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[ShieldW0lf]

Personally, I'm just turned off the entire Marvel brand. I've been a huge fan of their movies for many years, but now they just leave a rotten taste in my mouth. I don't think I'll watch their movies any more. I'm hesitant to even write this post, because I really just want to disengage from the whole thing. I feel kind of sad that something that brought a lot of joy to my life got poisoned with identity politics.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Wokeness? I assumed the audience is teenage boys who want to see a beautiful young woman in a tight body suit to go with the usual battle scenes. I would be curious how many girls watch the movie. But I doubt it's many. The salespitch of, "Why be a woman when a woman can now be a man?" is neither feminine nor feminist. Only opportunistic.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[AmiMoJo]

Wait, wanting to support International Women's Day by releasing your film on it (or more likely just cashing in, whatever) is divisive now?

As I said, it's only a small number of snowflakes who get triggered and try to bomb the user scores on these things, most people either don't care or think it's a good thing.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[AmiMoJo]

Does every movie have to have a straight while male good guy now?

What is the logic here, that it's some kind of subtle attack on white males? How does that work?

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[kqs]

If they let it be just a movie, and not try to force political agendas in the marketing of this, then there wouldn't be such a big of a controversy. There's plenty of movies with female leads out there which are great. Ignoring that fact just makes Brie Larson look like a bitter moron.

Wait, what? I haven't seen any political agenda with this movie except from the trolls. Trolls blasted the movie on ratings sites, then complained about the controversy they created and the political agenda they are pushing.

Was the first Iron Man, where all of the heroes and villains were male, a "political agenda"? Well, this movie, which has a female lead and males and females on both the "good" and "evil" side, is no more political. So, why do you keep on trying to make it political?

I mean, spoiler alert, but the Big Bad in this movie is portrayed by a female for god's sake. Women can do that too; get over it.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first one that feels like it has only divided us even more.

Only if you're an MRA snowflake idiot.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[UnknowingFool]

Every white male was a villain and every female was flawless? Apparently you didn’t see the movie.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[zugmeister]

Since the movie has nothing about SJWs or Manspreading in it...

So Brie Larson didn't describe it as a "big feminist movie"?
And it wasn't timed to be released on Woman's Day?
And it doesn't have a Mary Sue character?
And any legitimate criticism of the movie hasn't been met with cries of "incel" or "mysogynist" or "troll"?
Well then, I guess you're right. Nothing to see here, move along....

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[fafalone]

There's plenty of legitimate arguments against what people were actually upset about, reducing it to the strawman "omg they're sexists mad because it's a female lead!" is inaccurate and demonstrates you're every bit as intellectually dishonest as the people you're criticizing. Brie Larson has made statements objecting to white men reviewing her movies and making up too much of the press pool, such as saying about A Wrinkle In Time "I don't need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn't work about A Wrinkle in Time. It wasn't made for him!".
If you want to argue about whether that's actually anti-white male instead of pro-diversity, that's a valid debate, so instead you set up the ol' strawman and claim people were mad that a woman was given the lead in a superhero movie, which was never the issue and the same group of people love movies like Aliens, Terminator, and Wonder Woman- all movies with tough female leads. Typical sjw tactic to avoid the actual argument by painting all critics as sexists/racists. More and more people are getting sick of nonsense like that; take the statement I quoted above, if you changed 'white' to any other race, you'd be screaming about the blatant racism. A lot of people have a real problem with this idea that bigotry isn't wrong in principle, but only wrong if it's against non-whites. Then there's the fact that even milder statements are decried as 'dog-whistles' for racism, then you'll try to argue even blatant anti-white-male statements aren't.
People who resent sexism and racism as wrong in principle instead of perfectly fine if the identity groups are right are sick of the harm sjws are doing to social justice and the regressive stance on civil rights progressives favor.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[AmiMoJo]

Interesting that Wonder Woman has suddenly become a great example of a recent female lead movie, despite at the time there being all the same rage over it being extremely sexist. Remember that photo of the crew that was all female? And the complaints that Gal Gadot wasn't as hot or busty as Linda Carter?

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[squiggleslash]

Marvel seems to have chosen this approach intentionally. The certainly didn't take this approach with Black Panther. Nor did DC take this approach with Wonder Woman.

Marvel took what approach? Because all I see are:

1. A trailer being released six months ago.
2. The usual Internet Misogynists responding in the usual stupid way (mostly about Brie Larson not smiling enough.)
3. Most of the comics community laughing at the misogynists.
4. The misogynists deciding that the movie must, thus, be an "SJW" film because they got laughed at for being shitheads.
5. Six months of re-interpretation of everything Brie Larson says to imply she hates white men. There's even an AC in this thread arguing she hates men because... she once mentioned, critically, the fact she was sexually harassed by a TSA officer. Two years before the film was released.

There's been nothing divisive about how the film was marketed, and contrary to the gaslighting I'm seeing by you and others, WW was attacked by the usual IMs at the time too. Alita? No, but what does Alita have to do with literally anything at all, given it's about a robot who happens to appear like, eyes excepting, a girl? It says everything that the average IM thinks they can pretend liking a film about a robot somehow means they're not motivated by misogyny when they attack Captain Marvel.

The entire controversy was whipped up by IMs. Marvel's done damage control, but they've not said a single thing that can be construed as anti-anyone other than anti-misogynists-who-hate-this-movie-before-theyve-even-seen-it. And if it's "divisive" to say "People whose hatred of women means they're running bizarre campaigns to reduce the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes of a movie they've never watched", then... I guess it fits that definition, but that's not the definition most people use.

Not seen the film. Not particularly bothered by it generally but nonetheless feeling like I can't trust a single review at the moment thanks to the IMs poisoning the well again. This is a repeat of the same shit we saw with Ghostbusters (which turned out to be awful), Wonder Woman (which turned out to be good, great if you exclude the last 20 minutes), and Black Panther (which turned out to be great, period.)

Stop blaming Marvel for what an anti-women campaign that had nothing to do with them. And stop interpreting the lifting up of minority voices as being an attack on white men, it's ridiculous.

Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess

[Can'tNot]

Marvel's done damage control, but they've not said a single thing that can be construed as anti-anyone other than anti-misogynists-who-hate-this-movie-before-theyve-even-seen-it.

Well... As it was described to me, the primary instigator was this:

“Am I saying I hate white dudes?” asked the Oscar-winning “Room” actress, a question that she’d repeat twice more during her speech. She answered with a sneer, “No, I’m not [but if] you make the movie that is a love letter to women of color, there is an insanely low chance a woman of color will have a chance to see your movie and review your movie.”

Larson continued, “[Audiences] are not allowed enough chances to read public discourse on these films by the people that the films were made for. I do not need a 70-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work for him about ‘[A] Wrinkle in Time.’ It wasn’t made for him. I want to know what it meant to women of color, to biracial women, to teen women of color, to teens that are biracial.”

Calling for greater inclusivity among film critics is all well and good, but saying that white men can't or shouldn't critique a given film is discriminatory. "White men should know their place."

In a vacuum, what she said here would not be terrible. It's easy to see her intention and the discriminatory aspect can be overlooked, as it was not her goal. (Though I do think it would be a mistake even in a vacuum; stories are how we connect to one another. If you craft your story in such an exclusionary way then you're missing the point.) However, this was not in a vacuum: ranting about 'white men' is a trigger for many people, since it's rapidly become an acceptable form of racism in certain contexts. And not tiny limited contexts that no one pays attention too, consider the story about Sarah Jeong. That's a tough nut.

So... I'm not disagreeing with your main point, some people certainly blew this out of proportion, but it's not quite as spontaneous as you're suggesting.

I did not know I am a bot

[RuiFRibeiro]

I voted I did not wanted to see. Rotten tomatoes changed 47K do not want to see votes to "liked it". So much for credibility.

Re:I did not know I am a bot

[thegarbz]

So much for credibility.

And then found, announced and corrected the problem which occurred due to a very recent change. That is precisely how credibility works.
Also they didn't say all the original votes were bots, but given site participation it was obvious that 90% of them were.

Now please, stop frothing at the mouth, smoke some weed, do some yoga, or do whatever it is you do to relax after you nerd rage over nothing.

As An Internet Troll

[NicknameUnavailable]

I had no skin in this one and wouldn't waste my time on "review bombing," probably done by the marketing department to convince the people paying for the marketing department to increase their wages since it would take so much effort to overcome the "trolling." Obvious psy-op is obvious.

Re:Cry moar, incels and Nazis

[MightyMartian]

They'd have to accept some responsibility for why women don't want anything to do with them. That would mean self-reflection and honest self assessment. Much better to blame women, and attack women wherever they intrude upon their twisted notion of masculinity.

Reviews are Jedi Mind Tricks

[TigerPlish]

Reviews sway the opinions of those who are weak-minded, may not reflect the true quality of the [thing] may actually be paid for.

Examples: The Final Countdown. Dreadful reviews. Love the film. Down Periscope: Dreadful reviews. Love the film.

FZ50 panasonic camera: worst camera ever if you believe the reviews. Love mine.

If someone needs reviews to decide they like something, they're susceptible to Jedi Mind Tricks and are easy plunder.

Good controversy is the best marketing

[SchroedingersCat]

Investing into small team of review-bombers is a brilliant marketing move.

wrong headline

[slashmydots]

Actually the headline should be "Brie Larson makes insanely racist and sexist comments and ignorant moviegoers see it anyway."

Re: Love the hypocrisy of the slashdot editors

[Millennium]

It's more that geeks have become sick and tired of Those Geeks. You know the type: the ones who weren't bullied for being different so much as ostracized for being creepy, and ran to the all-ostracism-is-evil crowd to escape the social pressure to grow that they so desperately needed? They've abused our generosity long enough, and it's time to put them back on the outside where they always belonged.

Slashdot article Smashes zero Box Office Records,

[triffid_98]

Thanks to new ownership and a wide understanding that comments are forever Slashdot is no longer an effective medium for discourse on many topics. This is but one of them. It may not be a #metoo echo chamber but once upon a time controversial discussions were had here without posting as AC over a VPN connection