A new report reveals that Rotten Tomatoes — the movie site used by millions of people to decide if a movie is worth seeing — was allegedly manipulated by a public relations company to boost a movie’s critical reception.
A PR firm called Bunker 15 was engaged to help the 2018 movie “Ophelia,” starring Daisy Ridley. The initial rating for the film on Rotten Tomatoes came in at a poor 46%, but according to Vulture, Bunker 15 paid some of the more obscure critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website to post positive reviews for $50 or more per review. An employee of Bunker 15 allegedly emailed a prospective reviewer, “It’s a Sundance film and the feeling is that 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.”
When the reviewer asked what Bunker 15 would do if he hated the film, the Bunker 15 employee replied that critics could write whatever they pleased but “super nice ones (and there are more critics like this than I expected)” would agree to publish bad reviews on “a smaller blog that RT never sees. I think it’s a very cool thing to do.”
“Between October 2018 and January 2019, Rotten Tomatoes added eight reviews to Ophelia’s score. Seven were favorable, and most came from critics who have reviewed at least one other Bunker 15 movie,” Vulture reported.
“Ophelia” subsequently climbed up to a 62% rating; the next month IFC Films acquired the film for distribution.
Bunker 15 founder Daniel Harlow responded to Vulture, “Wow, you are really reaching there. … 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.”
One problem with Rotten Tomatoes scores: they are posted after only a few reviews are in. Thus a film company can prescreen a movie for selected critics, then delay setting the movie’s review embargo so those positive reviews can tilt the Rotten Tomatoes score as high as possible before the bulk of critics can weigh in on the film.
Vulture cited “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which started on Rotten Tomatoes at 79% and had the best opening of any Ant-Man movie before other reviews dropped it down to the 40-50% range, The second weekend, the film’s grosses plunged 69%.
Filmmaker Paul Schrader, who once was a critic, offered, “The studios didn’t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don’t like it. But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people don’t go through reviews like they used to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So they do.”