According to Vanity Fair 20th Century Fox had organzied a study entitled “Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office,” which all, but predicted what is happening right now with millennials embracing the aggregate movie web site when it came to choosing which movies to buy tickets to.
“The power of Rotten Tomatoes and fast-breaking word of mouth will only get stronger. Many Millennials and even Gen Xers now vet every single 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.”
“Consider not giving the critics a chance to slam you. While it’s never a great feeling to withhold from critics, now it may help to at least preserve your Friday.”
I've made a habit of looking at their Average Rating on RT as well.
I wrote this last week about Hollywood's war against RT:
"Oh, give me a break. You really think we wanted a fifth "Pirates" movie? Who's the brainiac that greenlit the damn thing? How about making a movie out of a show, "Baywatch," that was mocked at when it aired back in the '90s and was only watched by pervs that wanted to catch female beach bods in action (pre-Porn era)? Yes, we might be living in a culture where film aggregates are becoming important to a film's success and know what? I'm glad we are. Didn't we all wish in the '90s and '00s to live in a time when the good movies made money and the bad ones tanked? Well, this is the time folks. Bet big on "Baby Driver" doing well in late June, ditto "Dunkirk," "The Beguiled" and "Detroit." Why? The film community will be supporting these artistic statements and millennials will listen. The cinematic experience is becoming too expensive, people are becoming pickier and relying more on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to make their decisions on a Saturday night. This is my message to studios if they want box-office success: How about you just make a good movie."
