Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes
Type of site
 Film review aggregator and user community
Owner Fandango Media
(Warner Bros. Entertainment/Time Warner (30%)
Comcast/NBCUniversal (70%))[1][2]
Website rottentomatoes.com
Alexa rank Increase 459 (Jan. 2017)[3]
Commercial Yes
Registration Optional
Launched August 12, 1998 (1998-08-12)

Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by Senh Duong and since January 2010 has been owned by Flixster, which was, in turn, acquired in 2011 by Warner Bros. 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.[2] From 2007 to 2017, the website's editor-in-chief was Matt Atchity, who left in July 2017 to join The Young Turks.[4] The name "Rotten Tomatoes" derives from the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes when disapproving of a poor stage performance.

From early 2008 to September 2010, Current Television aired the weekly The Rotten Tomatoes Show, featuring hosts and material from the website. A shorter segment was incorporated into the weekly show, InfoMania, which ended in 2011. In September 2013, the website introduced "TV Zone", a section for reviewing scripted TV shows.

History

Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 12, 1998, as a spare-time project by Senh Duong.[5] His goal 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."[6] As a fan of Jackie Chan's, Duong was inspired to create the website after collecting all the reviews of Chan's movies as they were being published in the United States. The first 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.[7]

In June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired rottentomatoes.com for an undisclosed sum.[8] In September 2005, IGN was bought by News Corp's Fox Interactive Media.[9] In January 2010, IGN sold the website to Flixster.[10] The combined reach of both companies is 30 million unique visitors a month across all different platforms, according to the companies.[11] In May 2011, Flixster was acquired by Warner Bros.

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.[12] 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 Oscars 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.[13]

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.[2]

Website

Rotten Tomatoes is a top 1000 site, placing around #600 globally, and top 300 for the US only, according to website ranker, Alexa.[14] Monthly unique visitors to the rottentomatoes.com domain is 26M global (14.4M US) according to audience measurement service, Quantcast.[15]

Tomatometer 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 staff determine for each review whether it is positive ("fresh", marked by a small icon of a red tomato) or negative ("rotten", marked by a small icon of a green splattered tomato). (Staff assessment is needed as some reviews are qualitative rather than numeric in ranking.)

IconScoreDescription
70–100%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%.[16] Films with limited releases only require 40 reviews (including 5 from "Top Critics") to qualify for this seal.[16]
60–100%Fresh. Films with a score of 60% or higher that do not meet the requirements for the "Certified Fresh" seal.
0–59%Rotten. Films with a score of 0–59% receive this seal.

The website keeps track of all of the reviews counted for each film and the percentage of positive reviews is calculated. Major, recently released films can attract up to 300 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".

"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 from Tomatometer Critics (including 5 Top Critics). Films earning this status would keep it unless the positive critical percentage drop below 70%.[16] Films with 100% positive ratings but fewer than required reviews may not receive the "Certified Fresh" seal.

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.[17] This was later renamed the Golden Tomato Awards.[18] 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 500 or less 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.[18] 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 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 are initiated each year, usually the first of the new year. Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the results of the Golden Tomato Awards.[18]

Critics Consensus

Each movie features a brief summary of the reviews used in that entry's Tomatometer aggregate score.

Audience Score and reviews

Each movie features a "user average," which calculates the percentage of users who have rated the film positively, similar to calculation of recognized critics' reviews. The users' score is more detailed, because users rate the movie on a scale of 0–10. (Critic reviews generally use 4-star ratings and are often qualitative). A user score of 7 (equivalent to 3.5 stars on a 5-star scale) or higher is considered positive. Registered and logged-in users can rate and review movies.

Localized versions

Localized versions of the site available in Britain, India, Australia were discontinued following the acquisition of Rotten Tomatoes by Fandango. The Mexico version of the site (Tomatazos) remains active.

API

The Rotten Tomatoes API (Application Program Interface) 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.[19]

Hollywood reaction

In recent years, major Hollywood studios have grown to see Rotten Tomatoes as a threat to their marketing. For instance, in 2017 several blockbuster films like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Baywatch and The Mummy were projected to open to a respective $90 million, $50 million and $45 million, but ended up debuting with $62.6 million, $23.1 million and $31.6 million. Rotten Tomatoes, which gave the films low scores of 32%, 19% and 15%, respectively, was faulted for undermining them. That same summer, films like Wonder Woman (92%) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (93%) received high scores and opened on-par with their $100+ million trackings.[20][21][22]

As result of this concern, 20th Century Fox, commissioned a 2015 study titled “Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office,” that stated the website, which 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 Xers now vet every single 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.[22]

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.[21] 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 6% 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 20% rating, until the day of its release, but it still opened just $8.7 million, the lowest of star Will Ferrell's career.[22]

Jon Penn, of the National Research Group (NRG), noted that the website is an increasingly serious interference to movie marketing: “Moviegoers love trailers. They pay attention to the TV spots. But Rotten Tomatoes is like the truth serum on the entire [promotional] campaign: are all the things you’re telling me about the movie true or not?" In response, it has been suggested that films should be withheld from critics to prevent Rotten Tomatoes from undercutting films' premiere box office,[23] even though that marketing tactic has drawn the vocal disgust of influential critics such as Roger Ebert, who was prone to derisively condemn such moves, and the films receiving them, with gestures such as "The Wagging Finger of Shame," on At the Movies.

Criticism

In January 2010, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the New York Film Critics Circle, its chair Armond White cited Rotten Tomatoes in particular and film review aggregators in general, as examples of how "the Internet takes revenge on individual expression."[24] He said they work by "dumping reviewers onto one website and assigning spurious percentage-enthusiasm points to the discrete reviews."[24] According to White, such websites "offer consensus as a substitute for assessment."[24] 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".[25] Writer Max Landis, following his film Victor Frankenstein receiving an approval rating of 24% on the site, tweeted: "(Rotten Tomatoes breaks down entire reviews into just the word "yes" or "no," making criticism binary in a destructive arbitrary way)", which novel and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith agreed with.[26]

By contrast, others have noted that filmmakers have only themselves to blame if film critics dismiss their films, causing Rotten Tomatoes to give their product a bad score. 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!”[27] 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."[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Fandango snaps up Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster". Engadget. AOL. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 Anthony D'Alessandro. "Fandango Acquires Rotten Tomatoes & Flixster - Deadline". Deadline. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Rottentomatoes.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes Editor-in-Chief Matt Atchity Joins The Young Turks as Head of Programming". Variety. July 16, 2017.
  5. ↑ Lazarus, David (April 26, 2001). "Fresh Look For Rotten Tomatoes / Help from college buddies elevates movie-rating website beyond hobby status". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  6. ↑ "Senh Duong interview, 2000". Asianconnections.com. August 19, 1999. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
  7. ↑ Ryan, Tim. "Rotten Tomatoes Oral History". Rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
  8. ↑ "IGN Entertainment to Acquire Rotten Tomatoes". Corp.ign.com. 2004-06-29. Retrieved 2017-01-27.
  9. ↑ "News Corp. Acquires IGN for $650 Million". Bloomberg. 2005-09-10. Retrieved 2017-01-27.
  10. ↑ Graser, Marc (January 4, 2010). "Flixster buys Rotten Tomatoes". Variety. Retrieved January 4, 2010.
  11. ↑ "News Corp. Unloads Rotten Tomatoes Onto Flixster". TechCrunch. AOL. January 4, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  12. ↑ "The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current". Therottentomatoesshow.com. November 23, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
  13. ↑ Atchity, Matt. "Welcome to the Rotten Tomatoes TV Zone". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 17, 2013.
  14. ↑ "rottentomatoes.com". Alexa. Retrieved November 28, 2014.
  15. ↑ "rottentomatoes". Quantcast. Retrieved November 28, 2014.
  16. 1 2 3 "Rotten Tomatoes: Licensing". www.rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 2016-06-03.
  17. ↑ "2nd Golden Tomato Awards". Rotten Tomatoes.com. January 1, 2013. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
  18. 1 2 3 "14th Golden Tomato Awards". Rotten Tomatoes.com. January 1, 2013. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
  19. ↑ "Welcome to the Rotten Tomatoes API". Flixster, Inc. Retrieved November 28, 2014.
  20. ↑ Mendelson, Scott (13 June 2017). "Rotten Tomatoes, Netflix And A Perfect Storm That Dooms Hollywood". Forbes. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  21. 1 2 "How ‘Pirates’ & ‘Baywatch’ Are Casualties Of Summer Franchise Fatigue At The Domestic B.O.". Deadline. May 28, 2017. Retrieved July 20, 2017.
  22. 1 2 3 4 "Studios Fight Back Against Withering Rotten Tomatoes Scores". The Hollywood Reporter. August 2, 2017.
  23. ↑ Lee, Chris (9 June 2017). "How Hollywood Came to Fear and Loathe Rotten Tomatoes". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  24. 1 2 3 White, Armond (April 3, 2010). "Do Movie Critics Matter?". First Things. Retrieved June 2, 2017.
  25. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes Is 'the Destruction of Our Business,' Says Director". Entertainment Weekly. 23 March 2017. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  26. ↑ https://mobile.twitter.com/uptomyknees/status/684066410998304768
  27. ↑ Lee, Chris (June 9, 2017). "How Hollywood Came to Fear and Loathe Rotten Tomatoes". Vanity Fair. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
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