There's no question that Rotten Tomatoes has completely changed the way that viewers decide to see films in theaters. While the Tomato-meter is by no means a measure of how great a film is, the aggregate score leads many into believing just that, and it looks like one of Hollywood's directors is speaking out about it. In a discussion at the Sun Valley Film Festival, Brett Ratner (HERCULES, RUSH HOUR) had a few things to say about the film site and how it's destroying their business, namely BATMAN V SUPERMAN (which he produced).
Brett Ratner on Rotten Tomatoes:
The worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes. I think it’s the destruction of our business. I have such respect and admiration for film criticism. When I was growing up film criticism was a real art. And there was intellect that went into that. And you would read Pauline’s Kael’s reviews, or some others, and that doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s about a number. A compounded number of how many positives vs. negatives. Now it’s about, ‘What’s your Rotten Tomatoes score?’ And that’s sad, because the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low on Batman v Superman I think it put a cloud over a movie that was incredibly successful.
People don’t realize what goes into making a movie like that. It’s mind-blowing. It’s just insane, it’s hurting the business, it’s getting people to not see a movie. In Middle America it’s, ‘Oh, it’s a low Rotten Tomatoes score so I’m not going to go see it because it must suck.’ But that number is an aggregate and one that nobody can figure out exactly what it means, and it’s not always correct. I’ve seen some great movies with really abysmal Rotten Tomatoes scores. What’s sad is film criticism has disappeared. It’s really sad.
Entertainment Weekly reached out to Rotten Tomatoes and Vice President Jeff Voris offered up a few words that are, surprisingly, not all too different from what Ratner was staying. Take a look!
Vice President Jeff Voris on Rotten TomatoesWords:
At Rotten Tomatoes, we completely agree that film criticism is valuable and important, and we’re making it easier than it has ever been for fans to access potentially hundreds of professional reviews for a given film or TV show in one place. The Tomatometer score, which is the percentage of positive reviews published by professional critics, has become a useful decision-making tool for fans, but we believe it’s just a starting point for them to begin discussing, debating and sharing their own opinions.
I'm not going to deny that people utilize Rotten Tomatoes in the way Ratner says, but at some point you have to take ownership of your work. Ratner sounds like he's passing the buck. It's up to the individual reader to decide for themselves whether or not they want to see a movie based on the number of positive or negative reviews and if a film has mostly bad reviews, then doesn't that tell you something? There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but let's not pretend your movie is something that it isn't.