Is Hollywood Manipulating Rotten Tomatoes Scores?
Your suspicions about the legitimacy of Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer were correct – according to Vulture, at least. In an article released on its website today (and which will be featured in the September 11 issue of New York magazine), Vulture discusses the various problems with the review aggregator site in terms of how it operates and how moviegoers use it. It makes some good points, and it also makes some of the familiar lame arguments. (“Misogynist trolls review-bombed Captain Marvel, film at 11!”) But the most interesting part comes right at the top with the claim that Bunker 15, a movie publicity company, has been manipulating the Tomatometer score. The article doesn’t mince words: it accuses Bunker 15 of flat-out paying off critics.
Essentially, Bunker 15 pays some less-established critics to review movies it represents; Vulture uses the film Ophelia starring Daisy Ridley as an example. (I have no memory of that movie existing.) They paid the critics “$50 or more” to review Ophelia, then used suggestive language when communicating with them, like “ it’s been treated a bit harshly by some critics (I’m sure sky-high expectations were the culprit) so the teams involved feel like it would benefit from more input from different critics.” If that isn’t a pair of winks and nudges, I don’t know what is. When a critic with scruples asked if it was okay to dislike the film, he was asked to publish his negative review on “a smaller blog that RT never sees. I think it’s a very cool thing to do.” One critic wrote a negative review of Ophelia, and a representative from Bunker 15 asked him to change it, saying that if he did, “I do know the editors at Rotten Tomatoes and can get it switched.”
Vulture notes that Bunker 15 denies this:
“Ophelia’s production company, Covert Media, didn’t return requests for comment. Bunker 15’s founder, Daniel Harlow, says,‘Wow, you are really reaching there,’ and disagrees with the suggestion that his company buys reviews to skew Rotten Tomatoes: ‘We have thousands of writers in our distribution list. A small handful have set up a specific system where filmmakers can sponsor or pay to have them review a film.’”
Based on their response to Vulture’s communications with them, it appears Rotten Tomatoes didn’t know about this, or at least they’re pretending not to have known:
“After I asked Rotten Tomatoes about Bunker 15, it delisted a number of the company’s movies from its website and sent a warning to writers who reviewed them. In a statement, Rotten Tomatoes wrote, ‘We take the integrity of our scores seriously and do not tolerate any attempts to manipulate them. We have a dedicated team who monitors our platforms regularly and thoroughly investigates and resolves any suspicious activity.’”
Again, Vulture doesn’t say how it came by this information – sources are cited in relation to other movies and tactics, but they aren’t specified as being the same ones used for Bunker 15 – but given Rotten Tomatoes’ reaction, I think it’s fair to assume it’s probably true. And the article calls Bunker 15’s score rigging for Ophelia “a useful microcosm for understanding how Rotten Tomatoes, which turned 25 in August, has come to function.” They’re referring to its inaccuracy in gauging a movie’s worth, and the article brings up some great points about other issues as well, like screening only for friendly critics to ensure a high score for opening weekend. But it’s a good bet that, if this is true, Bunker 15 is not alone in its manipulation, particularly considering how much money bigger studios have (or had, at this stage). Hire the right PR firm, and the studio can even maintain plausible deniability; just hand over the cash and let the experts do the dirty work.
As Vulture points out, this is why it’s important to read reviews rather than simply looking at the number score or, God forbid, the state of the tomato a review aggregator places next to it (which, as the article says, often doesn’t represent what the critic is actually saying in his review). Not everything can be boiled down to a simple number or symbol, and a good critic will be much more nuanced than that in his writing. Even if he didn’t like a movie, the reasons for his distaste could be things you enjoy seeing. (“Too much action.” “Male gaze.” “Jingoistic.” Sign me up.) And there are degrees of liking or disliking a piece of art; “okay” can swing either way, and sometimes a movie’s flaws are overcome by its virtues, even if a number score doesn’t quite bear that out once calculated. But, most importantly of all, don’t trust anything that can be bought like this.
