Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic scores are not hurting movies

Hollywood producer and director Brett Ratner recently made headlines for blaming review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes for disappointing box office returns for Hollywood movies.
“The worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes. I think it’s the destruction of our business,” Ratner said at the Sun Valley Film Festival in March.
Ratner said moviegoers focus on a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score rather than reading thoughtful reviews.
While consumers likely are using Rotten Tomatoes scores to judge whether to spend money on seeing a movie in the theater, that doesn’t mean the service is bad for the business. It is simply one tool consumers have at their disposal.
I have liked many movies that received poor scores from Rotten Tomatoes. And I have hated movies with good scores on the service (some examples: “Birdman” and “High-Rise.”)
Just as important is a viewer’s personal preferences and understanding the biases of professional film critics.
That said, Rotten Tomatoes and rival Metacritic do provide a good directional indicator for whether people will like a movie or not.

Related articles:

Hollywood Producer Blames Rotten Tomatoes for Convincing People Not to See His Movie (Vanity Fair)

5 reasons Brett Ratner’s Rotten Tomatoes complaints are garbage (The Verge)