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.[4][5][6][7] 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.[8] Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango.[2]
Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 12, 1998, as a spare-time project by Senh Duong.[9] 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."[10] 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.[11][12] 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.[citation needed]
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.[13]
In June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired Rotten Tomatoes for an undisclosed sum.[14] In September 2005, IGN was bought by News Corp's Fox Interactive Media.[15] In January 2010, IGN sold the website to Flixster.[16] The combined reach of both companies is 30 million unique visitors a month across all different platforms, according to the companies.[17] In 2011, Warner Bros. acquired Rotten Tomatoes.[18] In February 2016, Flixster, including Rotten Tomatoes, was acquired by Fandango, a company of which Warner Bros. has a minority share.[19]
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.[20] 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.[citation needed]
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".[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
On September 17, 2013, a section devoted to scripted television series, called "TV Zone", was created as a subsection of the website.[21]
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]
In July 2017, the website's editor-in-chief since 2007, Matt Atchity, left to join The Young Turks.[22] On November 1, 2017, the site launched a new web series on Facebook, See It/Skip It, hosted by Jacqueline Coley and Segun Oduolowu.[23]
In March 2018, the site announced its new design, icons and logo for the first time in 19 years at SXSW.[24]
Rotten Tomatoes is a top 1000 site, placing around #400 globally and top 150 for the US only, according to website ranker Alexa.[25] Monthly unique visitors to the rottentomatoes.com domain is 26M global (14.4M US) according to audience measurement service Quantcast.[26]
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.[citation needed]
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". 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.
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%.[27] Films with 100% positive ratings but fewer than required reviews may not receive the "Certified Fresh" seal.
Icon
Score
Description
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%.[27] Films with limited releases require only 40 reviews (including 5 from "Top Critics") to qualify for this seal.[27]
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.
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.[28] This was later renamed the Golden Tomato Awards.[29] 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.[29] 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.[29]
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.[30]
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 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.
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.[31]
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 trackings.[32][33][34]
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".[35] 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.[34]
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.[36]
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!".[37]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".[34]
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.[33] 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.[34]
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.[38] 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.[39] Inversely, films that have earned favorable scores have taken advantage of that in their marketing much like how Siskel & Ebert's trademarked phrase, "Two Thumbs Up," used to be displayed. For instance the highly acclaimed Disney Animation animated feature film, Zootopia, had at least one television commercial touting its "Certified Fresh" status on the website.
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?"[35]
In January 2010, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the New York Film Critics Circle, its chairmanArmond 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".[40]
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".[41] 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".[42]
While promoting the film Suffragette (which has a "fresh" rating[44]) 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."[45]
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, barring Wonder Woman.[46]
Fandango is an American ticketing company that sells movie tickets via their website as well as through their mobile app.
The Real Cancun
The Real Cancun is a 2003 American reality film directed by Rick de Oliveira and written by Brian Caldirola. Inspired by the reality television genre, this film followed the lives of sixteen Americans from March 13–23, 2003 as they celebrated spring break in Cancún, Mexico and experienced romantic relationships, emotional strife, or just had a good time.
Yogi Bear (film)
Yogi Bear is a 2010 American live-action/computer-animated family comedy film directed by Eric Brevig and written by Brad Copeland, Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia. Based on the animated television series The Yogi Bear Show and the character of the same name created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the film stars Anna Faris, Tom Cavanagh, T.J. Miller, Nate Corddry and Andrew Daly as well as the voices of Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake. The film centers on Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo-Boo Bear as they try to save their home Jellystone Park from being logged. Production on the film began in October 2008.
The Stone Quarry
The Stone Quarry, is an American film production company that was established in 2004 by filmmaker Zack Snyder, his wife Deborah Snyder, and their producing partner Wesley Coller.
Max (2015 film)
Max is a 2015 American family adventure drama film directed by Boaz Yakin, and co-written with Sheldon Lettich. The film stars Josh Wiggins, Mia Xitlali, Dejon LaQuake, Thomas Haden Church, Robbie Amell, Lauren Graham, Luke Kleintank, and Jay Hernandez. The film was released by Warner Bros. on June 26, 2015.
The Accountant (2016 film)
The Accountant is a 2016 American crime thriller film directed by Gavin O'Connor, written by Bill Dubuque and starring Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jeffrey Tambor, and John Lithgow. The storyline follows a small-town Illinois certified public accountant with high-functioning autism who actually makes his living uncooking the books of dangerous criminal organizations around the world that are experiencing internal embezzlement.
Warner Animation Group
The Warner Animation Group (WAG) is the feature animation division of Warner Bros. Animation, itself a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Pictures. Established on January 7, 2013, the studio is the successor to the dissolved 2D traditional hand-drawn animation studio Warner Bros. Feature Animation, which shut down in 2003. Its first film The Lego Movie was released on February 7, 2014 and its latest release was The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part on February 8, 2019; with their next release being a Scooby-Doo animated film on the first quarter of 2020.
Rampage (2018 film)
Rampage is a 2018 American science fiction monster film directed by Brad Peyton, and loosely based on the video game series of the same name by Midway Games. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It follows a primatologist named Davis Okoye who must team up with George, an albino gorilla who turns into a raging creature of enormous size as a result of a rogue experiment, to stop two other mutated animals, a gray wolf and an American crocodile, from destroying Chicago. It is the third collaboration between Peyton and Johnson, following Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) and San Andreas (2015).
The Lego Ninjago Movie
The Lego Ninjago Movie is a 2017 3D computer-animated martial arts adventure-comedy film based on the toy line of the same name. Directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan from a screenplay by Logan, Fisher, William Wheeler, Tom Wheeler, Jared Stern and John Whittington, it is the first theatrical film to be based on an original LEGO property, the third installment of The LEGO Movie franchise as well as its second spin-off. Starring the voices of Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Olivia Munn, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Zach Woods and Jackie Chan, the film focuses on Lloyd Garmadon, a teenage ninja as he attempts to accept the truth about his villainous father while a new threat emerges to endanger his homeland.
Ocean's 8
Ocean's 8 is a 2018 American heist comedy film directed by Gary Ross and written by Ross and Olivia Milch. The film is both a continuation and a spin-off from Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's trilogy and features an ensemble cast, including Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, and Awkwafina. The film follows a group of women led by Debbie Ocean, the sister of Danny Ocean, who plan a sophisticated heist of the annual Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, United States.
Game Night (film)
Game Night is a 2018 American black comedy mystery film directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and written by Mark Perez. It stars Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, and follows a group of friends whose game night turns into a real-life mystery after one of them is kidnapped by apparent burglars. The film's supporting cast includes Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall, and Kyle Chandler.
Wolves (2016 film)
Wolves is a 2016 American drama film written and directed by Bart Freundlich. The film stars Michael Shannon, Carla Gugino, Taylor John Smith, Chris Bauer and John Douglas Thompson. The film was released on March 3, 2017, by IFC Films.
Gotti (2018 film)
Gotti is a 2018 American biographical crime drama film directed by Kevin Connolly, and written by Lem Dobbs and Leo Rossi. The film is about the life of New York City mobster John Gotti and his son, John A. Gotti, and stars John Travolta, Kelly Preston, and Pruitt Taylor Vince.
I Am Not Your Negro
I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 documentary film directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript, Remember This House. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin's reminiscences of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr, as well as his personal observations of American history. It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.
Everything, Everything (film)
Everything, Everything is a 2017 American romantic drama film directed by Stella Meghie and written by J. Mills Goodloe, based on Nicola Yoon’s 2015 novel of the same name. The film follows a young woman named Maddy who is prevented by virtue of illness from going outside her house, and her neighbor Olly who wants to help her experience life.
24 Frames (film)
24 Frames is a 2017 Iranian experimental film directed by Abbas Kiarostami. It was his final feature film before his death in July 2016. It was posthumously shown in the 70th Anniversary Events section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
Isn't It Romantic (2019 film)
Isn't It Romantic is a 2019 American satirical romantic comedy film directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson and written by Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman. The film stars Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam DeVine, and Priyanka Chopra, and follows a woman who, after getting hit on the head, wakes up in a world where everything around her plays out like a romantic comedy film. The film was released in the United States on February 13, 2019, by Warner Bros. Pictures, and will be released in international territories by Netflix on February 28, 2019.
405 (October 2018
