Rotten Tomatoes Is Influencing Moviegoers Studies Show

[Himmel]

Recent studies commissioned by Hollywood studios find a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score has some influence over whether or not people make the trip to see it in theaters. Over the years, Rotten Tomatoes has become a valuable tool for audiences, providing a snapshot of a project’s quality.

According to a study conducted by the Nielsen Research Group states seven out of 10 moviegoers are less likely to see a movie if the Rotten Tomatoes score was between 0 – 25 percent. Fizziology, a social media research firm that tracks conversations about “every major Hollywood release,” discovered Rotten Tomatoes has high amounts of influence on audience members aged 25 and younger. The organizations said Rotten Tomatoes has become a “truth serum” to see if a title lives up to the hype, and movies anticipated for months can disappear from discussion on Twitter if the reviews are not up to par.

After buying Rotten Tomatoes, Fandango began featuring Tomatometer scores for every movie on its ticketing site, a practice likened to a restaurant promoting a Yelp rating. (MovieTickets.com intentionally doesn't feature any reviews scores on its site so as to not influence a consumer, according to insiders.) More recently, some studios were taken aback when AMC Theatres, the country's largest chain, adopted the same practice on its own ticketing website. AMC's site now only features a score if it is fresh, defined as anything 60 percent and above.

Studios are looking for ways to combat the so-called “Rotten Tomatoes Effect.” One sneaky strategy employed by Sony last week was to embargo professional reviews for The Emoji Movie until hours before its Thursday night preview screenings on July 27. The result was a $24.5 million opening weekend, narrowly losing first place to Dunkirk.

Box-office analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations says including the Rotten Tomato score on Fandango's ticket site is counterintuitive. "Rotten Tomatoes is a great resource, but can be damaging to the bottom line for films that people are on the fence about. And Fandango, at its core, is about selling as many tickets as possible," he says.

But Rotten Tomatoes vp Jeff Voris says it is "a disservice to focus just on the score. There are many levels of information."

"The Tomatometer has evolved into a truth serum of sorts to help moviegoers decode whether the promise of the campaign lives up to the reality of the film," says Nielsen Research Group CEO Jon Penn.

Adds Fizziology president Ben Carlson, "Things have reached a crescendo this summer. We see entire audience segments talking about a movie for months and then, all of a sudden, the conversation completely dries up and goes away when the Rotten Tomatoes score comes out. People are using the score as a pass/fail. Hollywood has always talked about a movie being "review proof." But it may not be Rotten Tomatoes proof."

In an age where a movie’s quality can be reduced to a number, it’s a challenge for all involved.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...scores-1025575