M. Night Shyamalanhas delivered plenty of movies that have divided audiences over the last two decades, but he now feels that Hollywood studios are using those kinds of opinions to decide exactly which movies get made and which don’t. Ahead of the release of his latest movieKnock at the Cabin, Shyamalan explained how he believes the opinions of a relatively small number of people onRotten Tomatoesis having a much bigger impact on Hollywood than they probably should. He toldYahoo!:
“It’s fascinating when we talk about kind of the appetite of Hollywood [has now], and how Hollywood represents a kind of a systemization of art now, which didn’t exist then. [Now] there’s kind of a group forum of what one perceives art to be, like Rotten Tomatoes and stuff, where it’s perceived that 200 people say this about the film, and then the audience is having an aggregate reaction. At least that’s what you’re seeing. The system is even making more decisions based on that. I think back in 1998, 1999, it wasn’t quite that way. We were still an original movie industry, and so the things that would move decisions to make movies were, ‘Are they impactful?’ ‘Is it something we’ve never seen before?’ Those were the metrics back then."
Relative:Dave Bautista Hopes Knock at the Cabin Performance Earns Him Respect
How Relative are Rotten Tomatoes Scores?
Before the internet, moviegoers had to decide whether to listen to the reviews of a handful of newspaper and magazine reviewers before going to see a film. Now there are hundreds of reviewers online to give their opinions, as well as thousands of regular people who are happy to share their sometimes short and lacking reviews, and that is where Rotten Tomatoes begins to lose some of its credibility.
One of the biggest problems faced by Rotten Tomatoes is the ability for anyone to leave a review for a show or movie, which can often lead to review-bombing against some releases. Recently,She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, The Rings of Power,and others have become targets for negative review-bombing due to their “wokeness,” whileThe Witcher: Blood Originsaw many disgruntled Henry Cavill fans giving the series 1-star reviews and stating in their review that it was purely down to the way Cavill had been “forced to leave” the main series due to his annoyance with changes made from the source material.
With so many reasons why someone could leave a good or bad review, even without watching the show or movie, it is not hard to see why using sites like Rotten Tomatoes to get a good gauge of something is sometimes not worthwhile. However, if those reviews are being used, as Shyamalan believes, to influence studio decisions, then there could be trouble ahead for many projects that may struggle to get off the ground.
