![]() ![]() But he suggested that the huge number of critics that Rotten Tomatoes draws from detracts from the site. In fact, his newspaper changed its publication schedule to accommodate them, running reviews on Thursday evenings instead of Friday mornings, so they can be included on Metacritic. Shawn Levy, the film critic with The Oregonian, told TheWrap that he’s happy to be included on these aggregators. Indeed, “The King’s Speech,” which got a 95 from Rotten Tomatoes, is considered “fresh,” and so is “Big Miracle,” Universal’s family film, which got a 70.īut while both are “fresh,” most readers would draw a distinction between a 70 and a 95. So studios sometimes tout their Rotten Tomatoes score rather than individual reviews because the Tomato Meter can look better. “But what it really means is that 90 percent of the people who reviewed it, reviewed it favorably.” “If you get a 90 percent Rotten Tomatoes, it sounds like a four-star review,” the executive said. And if the critic says it’s neither one, Rotten Tomatoes, which is owned by Flixster, which is, in turn, owned by Warner Bros., will push for an answer. ![]() If there’s a question, the staff will ask the critic. ![]() The site looks at the work of about 500 critics, although most movies get 250 reviews at the most. To be considered fresh a movie needs to hit 60 percent below that, it’s rotten. “We read through all the reviews we can find and give everything a simple up-or-down rating,” Atchity explained to TheWrap. Their scores are generally similar - though Rotten Tomatoes methodology lends itself to higher high scores and lower low scores. Metacritic and Movie Review Intelligence take nuances of individual reviews into account. The Tomato Meter gives a very simple read on how many of its critics gave the movie in question a favorable, or “fresh,” rating. “People quote the Tomato Meter,” Ebert said. He’s less convinced of the value of the aggregated rankings. “They are good for critics in that they call attention to our work and find us more readers,” Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, told TheWrap in an email. “I know that filmmakers are checking our site the day a movie opens, because they’ll challenge any review that they think is borderline.”įilm critics like the aggregators for broadening their reach, but even they have mixed feelings about them. “I know that almost everybody in the industry is checking our site,” Matt Atchity, Rotten Tomatoes’ editor-in-chief, told TheWrap. Metacritic and newer aggregator Movie Review Intelligence draw from a smaller critics pool and audience Metacritic gets about 2.5 million worldwide hits and Movie Review Intelligence less than 5 percent of that. Rotten Tomatoes gets some 9 million unique hits a month and is the most populist of the top three aggregators. “People don’t want to read 40 reviews, so in less than 60 seconds, you can get a sense that 80 percent of the critics thought this movie was great - or not.” “In the old days, you used to follow a critic,” the executive said, but that has changed. “I don’t know if they mean anything,” one studio distribution chief told TheWrap, before proceeding to rattle off scores that the studio’s movies had recently received.Īnother executive said that studios pay attention for a very simple reason: because viewers do. Film critics like the exposure on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and Movie Review Intelligence, but they are uneasy with some of the methodologies used. Studios certainly pay attention to top aggregators, even if they don’t always like to assign much importance to them. LOS ANGELES () - With media splintering more each passing year, movie review aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have grown in popularity, regularly popping up in studio marketing materials and box office reporting.īut how important are they? Are they any more reliable gauges of quality - or success - than traditional film critics were in their heyday?ĭepends on who you ask. ![]()
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