Tomato, Tomato! PR Firm has been manipuplating Rotten Tomatoes scores for years

[sandstorm]

A PR firm has been manipulating the Rotten Tomato scores of movies for at least five years by paying some “critics” directly. Truly depressing stuff here by @LaneBrown https://t.co/s0gwMJCfVy
- Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) September 6, 2023

• PR Firm Bunker 15 pays obscure, self published critics who are still somehow tracked by RT to be positive about

Comments

[theoryofwar]

[beigemediocrity]

100% I believe that Marvel also manipulates the reviews for their movies. No way Thor 4 was 64%.

[euraylie]

They had to have! Every movie prior to this latest phase was getting ratings in the 90 somethings. There is no way

[almostlawyer]

Once I said here that Disney was obviously paying critics and an user got so triggered about it, I really couldn't understand it lol

[anyaroses]

Supposedly some hardcore Marvel stans have websites/blogs/whatever that exist solely so they can give good reviews to Marvel movies so they can up their scores on RT.

[la_petite_singe]

lol the rise of RT scores as a barometer for a film's quality just proves how little people understand statistics. Like a 100% "fresh" rating could mean all the critics said it was genius OR all the critics said it was just kinda fine; both could count as "positive" reviews. And this points out, 100% good out of like 4 reviews isn't much of an indicator!

I still find it so embarrassing that TV spots actually say "97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes!!1" or whatever, as if that can't change every few hours. It's a useful place to find collected film writing, that's about it.

[pciam]

Exactly. I said it in a response but I typically prefer metacritic because each film is given a weighted score rather than a binary fresh or rotten per each review. I’m sure anything can be manipulated but metacritic has a better classification system to me.

A review classified as fresh can be a rave review or “meh it’s pretty good if you have nothing else better to watch” kind of thing lol

[mzgrottesca]

I always thought it was weird they didn't have like, an "Unripe" option or something for movies that are just okay/not quite there.

[haymitch]

i actually measure the audience score against the critic score to decide on movies that i’m on the fence for lol

[picturemegone]

I do love when there's a huge score difference between the audience and critics.

[bodylikemind]

but even that is manipulated, the article talks about that like how they make you verify you bought a ticket but who is going to rush out to see something the first weekend? diehards and people that have probably already bought in

[haymitch]

oh definitely! i actually read the reviews people leave lol i figure (mostly) only people who have seen the film will take the time to write a review.

[sandstorm]

Also, we now see reviews as entertainment. Some of us who were bb film fanatics like myself found reading Ebert to be the highlight of their week, but now everyone with a youtube channel or twitter account can vomit their wrong opinions.

[genbu_no_miko24]

It’s kinda interesting how the positive of the internet/social media is that it opened platforms for anyone to critique film eliminating previous gatekeeping but the actual negative is worse cause literally anyone can call themselves a critic despite no training…you just need a following now.

Given the rise of influencers and the like, sometimes I’m like “gatekeeping is not good but to a degree it def weeded out the talentless 👀”.

The film critic as a medium has been devalued a bit in the last decade cause I don’t see the importance it once had.