The Arbiter of Movie Quality? Comcast.
Alex Weprin
Spoiler alert: this is stupid on a few levels...
The Rotten Tomatoes “Certified Fresh” badge has become online shorthand for checking the quality of films, a sign that professional critics — or at least a large percentage of them — think that a movie is worth watching. Now, the Comcast-owned digital movie site is making a significant addition to its film rankings, unveiling a new “Verified Hot” badge on Aug. 21 meant to reflect the views of average moviegoers.
In order for a film to receive the Verified Hot designation, it needs to have a Verified Audience Score of 90 percent or higher on its Popcornmeter, among other eligibility requirements. Rotten Tomatoes will only use audience reviews from people whom it has verified as having purchased a ticket to that film via sister company Fandango, the ticketing firm also owned by Comcast.
First and foremost, as stated, the only way to get "verified" is to buy your tickets through Fandango. I've gone to a lot of movies in my life. And the number of times I've used Fandango to buy a movie ticket is definitely less than 10, maybe less than 5 times. Part of that is because the movie theaters I choose to go undoubtedly don't want to run their entire operation through a conglomerate-owned ticketing system. Now, with this change, I actually fear there will be some added pressure to.
Yes, I get that Rotten Tomatoes wanted a way to stop "review bombing" and this was probably the most obvious way, but it's a little too corporate synergistic for my taste. I would prefer another way that doesn't necessitate only Comcast-own entities quite so much...
The first films to receive the Verified Hot badge include Deadpool & Wolverine, Twisters, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Fly Me to the Moon and It Ends With Us. The site is also adding the badge retroactively to more than 200 films.
Of these, I've only seen Deadpool & Wolverine. It's fun. I'm not sure I would call it "good" but it's entertaining. I guess I'm okay with the "Verified Hot" branding since it's not "Verified Good" but it's still weird to me how we're relying on a subset of the movie-going audience to determine this. I get that people don't like movie critics, or feel that they're too often now out-of-step with audiences, but there must be another way. If the "masses are asses" what are the Comcast Cinematic Universe masses? Comcasses?
In another move, Rotten Tomatoes is updating the minimum number of critic reviews for a film before a Tomatometer score can appear. If a movie debuts at a film festival or is projected to have a box office of $60 million or less, then it will need to have 10 reviews for a score; if it has a projected box office of $60 million to $120 million, it will require 20 reviews; and if the projected box office is greater than $120 million, it will need 40 reviews.
Now we're just getting comically granular. A movie "projected to have a box office of $60 million or less". Okay. Again, I get the intent, it just feels so arbitrary.
The site also will include a general “hot” badge on its audience-led Popcornmeter for films where at least 60 percent of reviews garner at least 3.5 stars out of five, and a “stale” badge for films that fall below that threshold.
Oh goodie, participation badges!
The changes are significant on multiple fronts. A high score on either its consumer-centric Popcornmeter or critic-centric Tomatometer can make or break a movie in the days just before or after it bows at the box office.
In addition, the new Verified Hot badge appears to shift power from critics to average moviegoers, who can now in aggregate help a film generate a coveted badge, something that had been reserved for pro reviewers with the Certified Fresh designation.
Perhaps I'm just annoyed because I've long favored Metacritic – itself, once owned by CBS, thanks to that conglomerate buying CNET which owned Metacritic back in the day, now it's owned by Fandom, which owns Gamespot, TV Guide, etc – which seemed to be more selective in their critic selection. So yes, I liked the even more exclusive version of what Rotten Tomatoes is trying to move away from here.1
The Metacritic score for Deadpool & Wolverine is 56. That's "mixed or average" in their parlance. That's based on 58 critic reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes "Tomatometer" (critics) score? 78. That's based on 385 reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes "Popcornmeter" score? 95. That's based on "25,000+ verified ratings". Come on people, what are we doing here? This isn't Citizen Kane.
1 Humorously, Rotten Tomatoes also has a "Top Critics" area in its "Tomatometer". The score there for Deadpool & Wolverine? 61.