Wonder Woman 1984 had a big opening weekend hitting (relatively) big numbers at the box office, big streaming numbers, and even opened at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes - before suddenly dropping to 63% after release, exposing a major flaw with the Tomatometer. Rotten Tomatoes has had a number of fundamental issues for a long time, but Wonder Woman 1984's release highlights a few of them.
While the movie was overall positively reviewed, even after the drop, the sudden change of the score and loss of the "certified fresh" status certainly made waves. The movie has proven to be surprisingly more controversial than expected with some people loving Patty Jenkins' departure from the tone of the first film, while others find it drastically inferior to the original to the point they're unable to enjoy it at all.
Rotten Tomatoes is just a tool to aggregate and measure reviews, so it's not always at the center of a conversation over movie quality, but due to the drastic swing after the release of Wonder Woman 1984 it's getting a lot more discussion. Needless to say, there's a lot of confusion from consumers, but also some critics whose reviews weren't factored into the tally until after people had seen the movie are frustrated as well. It's easy enough to point to the split opinions on Wonder Woman 1984 as the cause of this swing, but there's actually a few more things at play in this scenario, orchestrating a situation where some of the biggest flaws of Rotten Tomatoes are on full display.
Rotten Tomatoes Has Always Been Broken
The release of Wonder Woman 1984 certainly highlights a specific flaw in Rotten Tomatoes, but before we get into the details, it's important to note this is not an issue unique to Wonder Woman 1984. Rotten Tomatoes has a number of major flaws and blind spots in its Tomatometer system, and Wonder Woman 1984 just happens to highlight a specific flaw people aren't normally aware of.
Rotten Tomatoes' numerical rating is not an average review score as the percent indicator may suggest, but it's a measurement of consensus. Every review, whether it's a middle of the road review, an extreme positive, or an extreme negative, is converted into a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, and the final percentage indicator only specifies what percent of reviewers gave it a positive score to any degree. As a result, the Tomatometer disproportionately benefits safe, middle-of-the-road movies and penalizes polarizing movies that have a lot of rave reviews but a handful of detractors.
As an example, if there's 100 reviews submitted to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie with 100 three-star (out of five) reviews is going to get 100%, whereas a movie that gets 80 ten-star reviews and 20 two-and-a-half-star reviews is going to be ranked significantly lower at 80%. The Tomatometer doesn't reveal any nuance, giving most people the impression that the middle-of-the-road safe movie is vastly superior to the polarizing movie with mostly rave reviews. This phenomenon was fully exposed with Joker's reviews.
It doesn't only hide nuance in the actual scoring, but it virtually erases the independent voices of the hundreds of review contributors for each movie, boiling there hundreds of words long reviews down to a simple thumbs up or thumbs down and a one-sentence pull-quote (assuming the reader even scrolls down to read it). The point of critics is to provide an explanation for their experience and give a unique perspective on an inherently subjective medium.
Rotten Tomatoes also has the unfortunate side effect of diminishing film analysis and discourse. Gone are the days of film fans pouring over Roger Ebert's thoughtful reviews, assessing the artistic intent, themes, and various creative decisions that go into crafting a movie in favor of a quick glance at the cold, opaque score of the Tomatometer, refocusing the idea of film critique into the most boring conversation possible: a simple evaluation of if a movie is good or bad.
How Warner Bros. Gamed Its Initial Review Scores
Outside of the inherent flaws and impact of the Tomatometer, the review aggregator's impact on word of mouth and box office resulted in studios making the review process a part of their marketing and release strategies. Social media embargoes typically lift before full-on review embargoes, resulting in some positive buzz from reviewers, but without the risk of a bad Tomatometer score too far ahead of release.
Warner Bros. has had a bad recent history with Rotten Tomatoes, particularly when it comes to their DC movies, seemingly reaching a crescendo with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. When the review embargo for Batman v Superman lifted, the initial score was so low it sent shockwaves through the film and fan communities, permanently shaping the discourse surrounding the movie before most people had even seen it.
After years of PR woes, struggling with pre-release leaks, bad press, and botched theatrical releases, WB's release strategy got a lot sharper with Wonder Woman 1984. The first wave of reviews came from international audiences, where the movie opened first, and critics are generally far more forgiving, especially when it comes to comic book blockbusters. In the United States, early screenings were limited and focused more on comic book friendly outlets, which happened to be a far more positive mix than the second wave of reviews.
As a result of this strategy, Wonder Woman 1984's Tomatometer score opened at 88% and stayed in that ballpark until the next wave of reviews hit. The negative shift of the second wave was significant enough to cause a steep drop in the Tomatometer score, and Wonder Woman 1984 stands at 63% as of this writing. Such a steep drop would normally be a major red flag, but since the second wave was so close to (or after) the movie's release in United States theaters and on HBO Max, many people wouldn't even know about the drop until after they saw the movie.
In the past, a drop in the Rotten Tomatoes score like this would have been a cloud over a DCEU movie's release, but because of the release logistics, many people saw the movie before the score change, making it became a moot point for most people who had already moved on to discussing the movie they'd already watched. The movie ended up marking a pandemic high box office opening and turning out big numbers for HBO Max.
It should also be noted that this approach isn't unique to Wonder Woman 1984, in fact, WB is really late to the game in many ways, as other studios have been using similar strategies for some time. But it's the addition of a simultaneous streaming release that really impacted reviews with Wonder Woman 1984.
Streaming Makes Rotten Tomatoes Irrelevant
The fact that Wonder Woman 1984 was also released on HBO Max on the same day as it released in theaters in the U.S. also has a major impact on the Rotten Tomatoes score. The whole reason the Tomatometer is programmed the way it is is to make it easier for casual theatergoers to make purchasing decisions. Going to the theater can be a big, and expensive, ordeal for many, especially parents who need to arrange child care (or pay for tickets for the whole family) and many people don't want to risk that kind of expense to watch something they don't like.
Streaming, meanwhile, is an entirely different dynamic. If you're already subscribed to the right platform, in this case, HBO Max, there's no additional cost. You don't have to pay for snacks, you don't have to deal with other theater-goers, you can pause and rewind as needed, you can use subtitles, and etc. With the improved affordability of home theater technology, a lot of people can still see movies on a big screen with big sound in the comfort of home. With movies, especially big, popular movies like Wonder Woman 1984, only a button click away, audiences are less concerned with evaluating the Tomatometer beforehand and are willing to check a movie out and decide for themselves, which is even more significant of an issue with declining theater attendance.
This doesn't just make Rotten Tomatoes less relevant, but traditional reviews as well. As the access to content improves with streaming, people are less in need of spoiler-free reviews to read ahead of time and more interested in breakdowns and analysis after the fact. There was some consternation with certain circles of critics over the way WB handled reviews for Wonder Woman 1984, and it's understandable from one angle - many reviewers may feel their voice was invalidated since many readers had already seen the movie before their review was even posted; however, from another angle, this is just a product of the streaming landscape and will only become more of an issue over time, especially in 2021 where Warner Bros. has almost its entire theatrical slate getting a day one HBO Max release.
How Rotten Tomatoes Needs to Evolve to Stay Relevant
As more and more content leans into streaming, Rotten Tomatoes may continue to lose relevance, making it necessary to change its strategy to provide a more useful service to consumers. The most logical pivot in their case would be making the scoring more personalized, focusing on content discovery instead of simply content rating. Changes like allowing users to follow specific critics to get tailored scores will help Rotten Tomatoes get away from the opaque one-size-fits-all rating system in favor of one that helps users discover new movies and shows based on the ratings of their favorite critics or based on how other user ratings match their own.
Streaming is completely upending how we engage with movies, and the significance of reviews is only one small part. It also entirely removes box office performance from the conversation, meaning, ideally, the future of film discussion won't involve comparisons of box office hauls and review aggregator scores and will instead focus on actual discussion of the filmmaking.
With HBO Max releasing WB's 2021 slate on the same day as the theatrical release, the situation with Wonder Woman 1984's Rotten Tomatoes score likely won't be a one-time occurrence. Wonder Woman proves the model works, not just for reviews, but with big streaming numbers and a pandemic-high box office haul, resulting in a stock increase for movie theaters, the original doom and gloom surrounding WB's decision to go straight to HBO Max is fading as 2021 ushers in a new era of movie consumption. If theaters can survive, streaming can thrive, and consumers can engage with new content in the way they wish without review aggregators and arbitrary box office numbers dominating the conversation. Hopefully, it's all for the best.
January 01, 2021 at 04:47AM
https://screenrant.com/wonder-woman-1984-rotten-tomatoes-score-drop-problem/
Wonder Woman 1984's Release Highlights Major Rotten Tomatoes Flaws - Screen Rant
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