Rotten Tomatoes Logo / Photo Credit: Rotten Tomatoes - NBCUniversal - WarnerMedia
WHAT IS ROTTEN TOMATOES? (In the
Entertainment industry.)
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What is Rotten Tomatoes?
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation
website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by
three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh
Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang. The name "Rotten Tomatoes"
derives from the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes when
disapproving of a poor stage performance.
Since January 2010, Rotten Tomatoes has been owned by
Flixster, which was in turn acquired by Warner Bros. in 2011. In February 2016,
Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango.
Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including
Fandango.
As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten
Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative,
and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60
percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten.
History
Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 12, 1998, as a
spare-time project by Senh Duong. His objective in creating Rotten Tomatoes was
"to create a site where people can get access to reviews from a variety of
critics in the U.S." As a fan of Jackie Chan, Duong was inspired to create
the website after collecting all the reviews of Chan's Hong Kong action movies
as they were being released in the United States. The primary catalyst for the
creation of the website was Rush Hour (1998), Chan's first major Hollywood
crossover, which was originally planned to release in August 1998. Duong coded
the website in two weeks and the site went live the same month, but Rush Hour
itself ended up being pushed back to September 1998. Besides Jackie Chan films,
he began including other films on Rotten Tomatoes, extending it beyond Chan's
fandom. The first non-Chan Hollywood movie whose reviews were featured on
Rotten Tomatoes was Your Friends & Neighbors (1998). The website was an
immediate success, receiving mentions by Netscape, Yahoo!, and USA Today within
the first week of its launch; it attracted "600–1000 daily unique visitors"
as a result.
Duong teamed up with University of California,
Berkeley classmates Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang, his former partners at the
Berkeley, California-based web design firm Design Reactor, to pursue Rotten
Tomatoes on a full-time basis. They officially launched it on April 1, 2000.
In June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired Rotten Tomatoes
for an undisclosed sum. In September 2005, IGN was bought by News Corp's Fox
Interactive Media. In January 2010, IGN sold the website to Flixster. The
combined reach of both companies is 30 million unique visitors a month across
all different platforms, according to the companies. In 2011, Warner Bros.
acquired Rotten Tomatoes. In February 2016, Flixster, including Rotten
Tomatoes, was acquired by Fandango, a company of which Warner Bros. has a
minority share.
In early 2009, Current Television launched the
televised version of the web review site, The Rotten Tomatoes Show. It was
hosted by Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox and written by Mark Ganek. The show aired
every Thursday at 10:30 EST on the Current TV network. The last episode aired
on September 16, 2010. It returned as a much shorter segment of InfoMania, a
satirical news show that ended in 2011.
By late 2009, the website was designed to enable
Rotten Tomatoes users to create and join groups to discuss various aspects of
film. One group, "The Golden Oyster Awards", accepted votes of
members for various awards, spoofing the better-known Academy Awards or Golden
Globes. When Flixster bought the company, they disbanded the groups,
announcing: "The Groups area has been discontinued to pave the way for new
community features coming soon. In the meantime, please use the Forums to
continue your conversations about your favorite movie topics".
As of February 2011, new community features have been
added and others removed. For example, users can no longer sort films by Fresh
Ratings from Rotten Ratings, and vice versa.
On September 17, 2013, a section devoted to scripted
television series, called "TV Zone", was created as a subsection of
the website.
In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site
Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango. Warner Bros retained a minority stake
in the merged entities, including Fandango.
In July 2017, the website's editor-in-chief since
2007, Matt Atchity, left to join The Young Turks. On November 1, 2017, the site
launched a new web series on Facebook, See It/Skip It, hosted by Jacqueline
Coley and Segun Oduolowu.
Traffic
Rotten Tomatoes is a top 1000 site, placing around
#400 globally and top 150 for the US only, according to website ranker Alexa.
Monthly unique visitors to the rottentomatoes.com domain is 26M global (14.4M
US) according to audience measurement service Quantcast.
In March 2018, the site announced its new design,
icons and logo for the first time in 19 years at SXSW.
Features
Critic aggregate score
Rotten Tomatoes staff first collect online reviews
from writers who are certified members of various writing guilds or film
critic-associations. To be accepted as a critic on the website, a critic's
original reviews must garner a specific number of "likes" from users.
Those classified as "Top Critics" generally write for major
newspapers. The critics upload their reviews to the movie page on the website,
and need to mark their review "fresh" if it's generally favorable or
"rotten" otherwise. It is necessary for the critic to do so as some
reviews are qualitative and do not grant a numeric score, making it impossible
for the system to be automatic.
The website keeps track of all the reviews counted
for each film and calculates the percentage of positive reviews. Major, recently
released films can attract more than 400 reviews. If the positive reviews make
up 60% or more, the film is considered "fresh", in that a
supermajority of the reviewers approve of the film. If the positive reviews are
less than 60%, the film is considered "rotten". An average score on a
0 to 10 scale is also calculated. With each review, a short excerpt of the
review is quoted that also serves a hyperlink to the complete review essay for
anyone interested to read the critic's full thoughts on the subject.
"Top Critics", such as Roger Ebert, Desson
Thomson, Stephen Hunter, Owen Gleiberman, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Peter Travers and
Michael Phillips are identified in a sub-listing that calculates their reviews
separately. Their opinions are also included in the general rating. When there
are sufficient reviews, the staff creates and posts a consensus statement to
express the general reasons for the collective opinion of the film.
This rating is indicated by an equivalent icon at the
film listing, to give the reader a one-glance look at the general critical
opinion about the work. The "Certified Fresh" seal is reserved for
movies that satisfy two criteria: a "Tomatometer" of 75% or better
and at least 40 reviews (for limited release movies, otherwise 80) from
"Tomatometer" critics (including 5 Top Critics). Films earning this
status will keep it unless the positive critical percentage drops below 70%.
Films with 100% positive ratings but fewer than required reviews may not
receive the "Certified Fresh" seal.
Certified Fresh: Wide-release films with a score of
75% or higher that are reviewed by at least 80 critics, of which 5 are
"Top Critics", are given this seal. The "Certified Fresh"
seal remains until the score drops below 70%. Films with limited releases
require only 40 reviews (including 5 from "Top Critics") to qualify
for this seal. For TV shows, only individual seasons are eligible for
consideration, and must have at least 20 critic reviews.
Fresh: Films or TV shows with a score of 60% or
higher that do not meet the requirements for the "Certified Fresh"
seal.
Rotten: Films or TV shows with a score of 0–59%
receive this seal.
When a film or TV show reaches the requirements for
the "Certified Fresh," it is not automatically granted the seal, but
is instead flagged for the staff's consideration. Once the team assesses the
reviews and response to the film or TV show, and decide that it is unlikely
that the score will fall below the minimum requirements in the future, they
will then mark it as "Certified Fresh."
Golden Tomato Awards
In the year 2000, Rotten Tomatoes announced the RT
Awards honoring the best-reviewed films of the year according to the website's
rating system. This was later renamed the Golden Tomato Awards. The nominees
and winners are announced on the website, although there is no actual awards
ceremony.
The films are divided into wide release and limited
release categories. Limited releases are defined as opening in 599 or fewer
theaters at initial release. Platform releases, movies initially released under
600 theaters but later receiving wider distribution, fall under this
definition. Any film opening in more than 600 theaters is considered wide
release. There are also two categories purely for British and Australian films.
The "User"-category represents the highest rated film among users,
and the "Mouldy"-award represents the worst-reviewed films of the
year. A movie must have 40 (originally 20) or more rated reviews to be
considered for domestic categories. It must have 500 or more user ratings to be
considered for the "User"-category.
Films are further classified based on film genre.
Each movie is eligible in only one genre, aside from non-English language films,
which can be included in both their genre and the respective
"Foreign" category.
Once a film is considered eligible, its
"votes" are counted. Each critic from the website's list gets one
vote (as determined by their review), all weighted equally. Because reviews are
continually added, manually and otherwise, a cutoff date at which new reviews
are not counted toward the Golden Tomato awards is initiated each year, usually
the first of the New Year. Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the
results of the Golden Tomato Awards.
Critics’ consensus
Each movie features a brief summary of the reviews
used in that entry's Tomatometer aggregate score. These are written by Jeff
Giles, a longtime author for the site.
Audience score and reviews
Each movie features a "user average", which
calculates the percentage of registered users who have rated the film
positively on a 10-star scale, similar to calculation of recognized critics'
reviews.
Localized versions
Localized versions of the site available in the
United Kingdom, India, and Australia were discontinued following the
acquisition of Rotten Tomatoes by Fandango. The Mexican version of the site
(Tomatazos) remains active.
API
The Rotten Tomatoes API provides limited access to
critic and audience ratings and reviews, allowing developers to incorporate
Rotten Tomatoes data on other websites. The free service is intended for use in
the US only; permission is required for use elsewhere.
Influence
Major Hollywood studios have come to see Rotten
Tomatoes as a threat to their marketing. In 2017 several blockbuster films like
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Baywatch and The Mummy were projected
to open with gross receipts of $90 million, $50 million and $45 million
respectively, but ended up debuting with $62.6 million, $23.1 million and $31.6
million. Rotten Tomatoes, which gave the films low scores of 30%, 19% and 16%,
was blamed for undermining them. That same summer, films like Wonder Woman and
Spider-Man: Homecoming (both 92%) received high scores and opened on par or
exceeded expectations with their $100+ million tracking’s.
As result of this concern, 20th Century Fox commissioned
a 2015 study, titled "Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office", that stated
the website combined with social media was going to be an increasingly serious
complication for the film business: "The power of Rotten Tomatoes and
fast-breaking word of mouth will only get stronger. Many Millennials and even
Gen X-ers now vet every purchase through the Internet, whether it's
restaurants, video games, make-up, consumer electronics or movies. As they get
older and comprise an even larger share of total moviegoers, this behavior is
unlikely to change". Other studios have commissioned a number of studies
on the subject, with them finding that seven out of 10 people said they would
be less interested in seeing a film if the Rotten Tomatoes score was 0-25, and
that the site has the most influence on people 25 and younger.
The scores have reached a level of online ubiquity
which film companies have found threatening. For instance, the scores are
regularly posted in Google search results for films so reviewed. Furthermore,
the scores are prominently featured in Fandango's popular ticket purchasing
website and its mobile app, Flixster, which led to complaints that
"rotten" scores damaged films' performances.
Others have argued that filmmakers and studios have
only themselves to blame if Rotten Tomatoes produces a bad score, as this only
reflects a poor reception among film critics. As one independent film
distributor marketing executive noted, "To me, it's a ridiculous argument
that Rotten Tomatoes is the problem ... make a good movie!” ComScore's Paul
Dergarabedian had similar comments, saying: "The best way for studios to
combat the 'Rotten Tomatoes Effect' is to make better movies, plain and
simple".
Some studios have suggested embargoing or cancelling
early critic screenings in a response to poor reviews prior to a film's release
affecting pre-sales and opening weekend numbers. In July 2017, Sony embargoed
critic reviews for The Emoji Movie until mid-day the Thursday before its
release. The film ended up with a 9% rating (including 0% after the first 25
reviews), but still opened to $24 million, on par with projections. Josh
Greenstein, Sony Pictures President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution,
said: "The Emoji Movie was built for people under 18 ... so we wanted to
give the movie its best chance. What other wide release with a score under 8
percent has opened north of $20 million? I don't think there is one".
Conversely, Warner Bros. also did not do critic pre-screenings for The House,
which ended up with a 16% rating, until the day of its release, but it still
opened to just $8.7 million, the lowest of star Will Ferrell's career.
That marketing tactic can backfire, and drew the
vocal disgust of influential critics such as Roger Ebert, who was prone to
derisively condemn such moves, with gestures such as "The Wagging Finger of
Shame", on At the Movies. Furthermore, the very nature of withholding
reviews can draw early conclusions from the public that the film is of poor
quality because of that marketing tactic.
On February 26, 2019, in response to issues
surrounding coordinated bombing of user reviews for several films, most notably
Captain Marvel, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, prior to their release,
the site announced that user reviews would no longer be accepted until a film
is publicly released. The site also announced plans to introduce a system for
"verified" reviews, and that the "Want to See" statistic
would now be expressed as a number so that it is not confused with the audience
score.
Criticism
Oversimplification
In January 2010, on the occasion of the 75th
anniversary of the New York Film Critics Circle, its chairman Armond White
cited Rotten Tomatoes in particular and film review aggregators in general as
examples of how "the Internet takes revenge on individual
expression". He said they work by "dumping reviewers onto one website
and assigning spurious percentage-enthusiasm points to the discrete
reviews". According to White, such websites "offer consensus as a
substitute for assessment".
Director and producer Brett Ratner has criticized the
website for "reducing hundreds of reviews culled from print and online
sources into a popularized aggregate score", and feels it is the
"worst thing that we have in today's movie culture". Writer Max
Landis, following his film Victor Frankenstein receiving an approval rating of
24% on the site, wrote that the site "breaks down entire reviews into just
the word 'yes' or 'no', making criticism binary in a destructive arbitrary
way".
Other
American director Martin Scorsese wrote a column in
The Hollywood Reporter criticizing both Rotten Tomatoes and Cinema Score for
promoting the idea that films like Mother! Had to be "instantly
liked" to be successful.
While promoting the film Suffragette (which has a
"fresh" rating) in 2015, actress Meryl Streep accused Rotten Tomatoes
of disproportionately representing the opinions of male film critics, resulting
in a skewed ratio that adversely affected the commercial performances of
female-driven movies. "I submit to you that men and women are not the
same, they like different things", she said. "Sometimes they like the
same thing, but sometimes their tastes diverge. If the Tomatometer is slighted
so completely to one set of tastes that drives box office in the United States,
absolutely."
Rotten Tomatoes deliberately withheld the critic
score for Justice League based on early reviews until the premiere of its See
It/Skip It episode on the Thursday before its release. Some critics viewed the
move as a ploy to promote the web series, but some argued that the move was a
deliberate conflict of interest on account of Warner Bros.' ownership of the
film and Rotten Tomatoes, and the tepid critical reception to the DC Extended
Universe films at the time.
Sources, References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks,
Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New
York Film Academy, The Balance, Careers Hub, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide
Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia,
Variety, No Film School, WGA, BBC, Daily Variety, The Film Agency, Best Sample
Resume, How Stuff Works, Studio Binder, Career Trend, Producer's Code of
Credits, Truity, Production Hub, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Variety,
Wolf Crow, Get In Media, Production Beast, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, UCAS, Frankenbite,
Realty 101, Careers Hub, Screen Play Scripts, Elements of Cinema, Script
Doctor, ASCAP, Film Independent, Any Possibility, CTLsites, NYFA, Future Learn,
VOM Productions, Mad Studios, DP School, DGA, IATSE, ASC, MPAA, HFPA, MPSE,
CDG, AFI, Box Office Mojo,
Rotten Tomatoes,
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