Current Events > CLUELESS movie studios are blaming Rotten Tomatoes for bombs

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://qz.com/995202/movie-studios-are-blaming-rotten-tomatoes-for-killing-baywatch-and-pirates-of-the-caribbean-which-no-one-wanted-to-see/

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch were never going to be critical darlings. The former is the fifth film in a franchise that should have been retired years ago, if Hollywood had any mercy at all. And the other is an action-comedy about lifeguards. Enough said. Both movies led the domestic box office to its worst Memorial Day weekend showing in nearly 20 years.

In the fallout, are Hollywood producers blaming the writers? The actors? Themselves? (Of course not.) No, they are reportedly 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. Deadline reported that:

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.

Stay classy Hollywood!
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voldothegr8 posted...

Fandango (which owns RT)

Wait. I thought Warner Bros owned RT
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Those execs make millions to brainstorm and micromanage all day, and they still fail to understand that people dont like spending theit hard earned money to watch bad movies
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At least they didn't try blaming gender or race.
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No one asked for either of those movies
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they could always make better movies
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Baywatch was actually really fucking funny.
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All I can hope is the Mummy reboot gets similarly poor reviews. It hasn't been nearly long enough for its existence to be justified
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I can't imagine Baywatch wasn't at least funny enough to be worth watching once

But more on topic, Hollywood is greedy, what else is new
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DEKMStephens posted...

All I can hope is the Mummy reboot gets similarly poor reviews. It hasn't been nearly long enough for its existence to be justified

Yeah I agree with this.
Dunno who thought it would be a good idea.

I loved the Brendan Fraser one which is still entirely watchable. Further more they're not doing a whole classic monsters remake so they can fuck off since this is just a remake of the 90's remake instead of the original.

Funny thing is, they tried pandering by making the mummy a woman but A. she just reminds me of the Suicide Squad dumpster fire and B. They already lost their pander-to audience by not using enough non-whites.
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Baywatch was actually really fucking funny.

I might see it
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YEah, I get the feeling Baywatch would be pretty great actually. Not from an artistic standpoint, but come on.
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Because the idea of a Baywatch movie sounded totally awesome--just like pretty much any older TV show made into a movie. I was completely stoked to see it until I saw the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. :/
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This reminds me of when Will Smith lamented the fact that it's harder to get away with making bad movies these days. I see it as a good thing.
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DEKMStephens posted...

All I can hope is the Mummy reboot gets similarly poor reviews. It hasn't been nearly long enough for its existence to be justified

whats wrong with it

only seen the trailer and doesnt look that bad
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Baywatch is probably watchable if only through the sheer force of the the Rock's charisma. However, movies like 21 Jump Street have shown that you can do a comedic remake on an old show and have it be legitimately good movie on its own merits.

Maybe just maybe, you shouldn't play the "this movie isn't for the critics card" and actually try to do better. Don't blame your failings on the populace having better taste than they did in the past.
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eston posted...

No one asked for either of those movies

I'd have asked for pirates, sure it's outlived its run, but I like the ships.

A baywatch movie centered around men... Why?
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Further more they're not doing a whole classic monsters remake so they can fuck off since this is just a remake of the 90's remake instead of the original.

Except it is about the original and not Frasier's. It's also going to start their monster universe with more of their classic monsters.
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it is sort of true.

The marvel superhero movies (other than tumblrina friendly wonder woman) wouldn't have "tanked" if it weren't for RT and the rent-a-critics it empowers.

bvs spoilers and avengers civil war spoilers:


"hay guise teh batman would NEVER ever use gunz! 0/10 would not watch again! And they made supez so unsuzpes like! He'd never hit teh turrorist that had Louise kek"

*2 minutes later*

"this movie where captain america acts like a total asshole to save his friend, regardless of whether the friend is guilty or not and risks innocent's lives is fantastic, totally not out of character, 10/10 I deeded at the theatre"
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ROD posted...

it is sort of true.

The marvel superhero movies (other than tumblrina friendly wonder woman) wouldn't have "tanked" if it weren't for RT and the rent-a-critics it empowers.

bvs spoilers and avengers civil war spoilers:


"hay guise teh batman would NEVER ever use gunz! 0/10 would not watch again! And they made supez so unsuzpes like! He'd never hit teh turrorist that had Louise kek"

*2 minutes later*

"this movie where captain america acts like a total asshole to save his friend, regardless of whether the friend is guilty or not and risks innocent's lives is fantastic, totally not out of character, 10/10 I deeded at the theatre"

lol, still pushing that narrative
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I wonder what biological differences exist between critics and audiences that would cause one group to hate a film and the other to love it.
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Baywatch was actually really fucking funny.

No it wasn't. It very well may be one of the worst movies ever made.
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I mean RT's system is kind of fucked up. The Tomatometer isn't really indicative of anything, but that's the number that's in big, bold font and used everywhere.
But to hold a site like RT accountable for anything is disingenuous at best.
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I wouldn't trust RT at all, it's just angsty people writing long "reviews" with words for the sake of words and hating everything to be "cool"
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Funny thing is, they tried pandering by making the mummy a woman

The role was actually gender neutral, Sofia Boutelli just blew them away in the audition

good, try making decent movies instead of relying on sequels

critics will work in your favor by convincing people to go see an original movie when it gets great reviews.
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Irony posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Baywatch was actually really fucking funny.

No it wasn't. It very well may be one of the worst movies ever made.

Youve seen it?
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Guys, they don't think Rotten Tomatoes themselves are giving their movies bad reviews, they suspect that Rotten Tomatoes cherry pick whose reviews to feature in order to better impact the publics opinion towards Warner Brothers best interests.
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Yes unfortunately
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ReignFury posted...

Those execs make millions to brainstorm and micromanage all day, and they still fail to understand that people dont like spending theit hard earned money to watch bad movies

Especially when there are so many other blockbusters that have already hit, or will hit theatres soon. Most people cannot afford to go see a movie in the theatre every week or two weeks.
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Irony posted...

No it wasn't. It very well may be one of the worst movies ever made.

What were your issues with it?
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I thought this had something to do with the 90's movie of the same name >_>
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Irony posted...

No it wasn't. It very well may be one of the worst movies ever made.

What were your issues with it?

It was a comedy movie reboot of a show that wasn't a comedy. On top of that it wasn't funny at all.
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Irony posted...

It was a comedy movie reboot of a show that wasn't a comedy.

These are things you knew going into it. Why did you "see it" if you already knew this? What could you possibly been have expecting?

On top of that it wasn't funny at all.

Then you didn't enjoy the jokes from the trailers, why did you see it?

What are some particular moments that fell flat?
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Funny thing is, they tried pandering by making the mummy a woman but A. she just reminds me of the Suicide Squad dumpster fire and B. They already lost their pander-to audience by not using enough non-whites.

So it's "pandering" because they casted a woman? What a CE thing to believe.

Asherlee10 posted...

And most people are tired of Hollywood pumping out reboots and unoriginal movies.

As much as a lot of people like to say this, I disagree. Most people would rather go see sqeual/reboots/etc because it's something they're familiar with opposed to something original and/or different. Which is unfortunate because there have been plenty of fantastic original films and most of them bomb at the box office or barely breaks even. Meanwhile, I guarantee you the new Transformers is most likely going to make the studio another billion.

Even now, they're bitching about PotC in this article but the movie is still currently #1 at the box office. The film made a lot, it just didn't make as much as the studio wanted.
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ROD posted...

it is sort of true.

The marvel superhero movies (other than tumblrina friendly wonder woman) wouldn't have "tanked" if it weren't for RT and the rent-a-critics it empowers.

bvs spoilers and avengers civil war spoilers:


"hay guise teh batman would NEVER ever use gunz! 0/10 would not watch again! And they made supez so unsuzpes like! He'd never hit teh turrorist that had Louise kek"

*2 minutes later*

"this movie where captain america acts like a total asshole to save his friend, regardless of whether the friend is guilty or not and risks innocent's lives is fantastic, totally not out of character, 10/10 I deeded at the theatre"

Are you trying to state that Cap and Bats are the same person?
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Irony posted...

It was a comedy movie reboot of a show that wasn't a comedy.

These are things you knew going into it. Why did you "see it" if you already knew this? What could you possibly been have expecting?

On top of that it wasn't funny at all.

Then you didn't enjoy the jokes from the trailers, why did you see it?

What are some particular moments that fell flat?

Because my co-workers invited me and I had a free few hours
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Isn't RT just the Metacritic of movies, or do they actually have some influence behind them as well?
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I don't think anyone is just assigning a number, there's usually a review attached, too. People don't read that though and only care about scores.

In other words, scores are an outdated method of rating a product and should go away.
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ClunkerSlim posted...

To be honest, "Hollywood" does have a point. And it's a point that the gaming industry has been trying to make for years too. That you can't just assign a number to a piece of media and be done with it. Things are more complicated than that. I think Adam Sessler said it best when talking about X-Play's 1 to 5 rating system. At the end of the day it's mostly subjective anyway and trying to narrow things down to some pinpoint number is just absurd.

You can just assign a number to a piece of media and aggregate sites averaging those numbers is usually a good indication of entertainment value. If they don't want their stuff to get low numbers then make a quality product, simple as that.
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ClunkerSlim posted...

To be honest, "Hollywood" does have a point. And it's a point that the gaming industry has been trying to make for years too. That you can't just assign a number to a piece of media and be done with it. Things are more complicated than that. I think Adam Sessler said it best when talking about X-Play's 1 to 5 rating system. At the end of the day it's mostly subjective anyway and trying to narrow things down to some pinpoint number is just absurd.

They got two options: They can just ignore it or they can put more work into the quality of their content if they really care that much about what some review aggregator site says rather than pulling the "movies aren't for critics" card.
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does rotten tomatoes do reviews just from official/professional critics or is it a site where any random people can leave reviews?
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kirbymuncher posted...

does rotten tomatoes do reviews just from official/professional critics or is it a site where any random people can leave reviews?

It has prof and user reviews like Metacritic (but naturally only the prof reviews count towards the score)
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Its not the 20th century anymore, media is evolving. Online review sites are here to stay and people will continue to use them as an indicator if a movie is worth seeing. Can you blame people? With ticket prices continuing to climb it can literally cost a small fortune for some families to see a movie. Cheaper options like Netlfix and to a lesser extent Redbox are also having an impact. There is literally a Netflix original movie being released every week (I realize many of these are terrible) The point is Hollywood cant continue to saturate the market with subpar movies and still expect to see high profits like they might have in the past. They need to cut out all the filler garbage and unnecessary sequels and actually create more original quality content. Complaining about rotten tomatoes etc is not gonna solve their woes.
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ClunkerSlim posted...

Imagine if we judged the rest of art the same way we judged film...

"I didn't bother going to look at the Mona Lisa. It only had a 65% at MetaArt. The Starry Night had a 70% so it was clearly better."

Imagine if you could think of sensible analogies.
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