{"id":2024554,"date":"2023-09-07T12:18:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T16:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rotten-tomatoes-manipulated-by-pr-firm-paying-critics-report\/"},"modified":"2023-09-07T12:19:59","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T16:19:59","slug":"rotten-tomatoes-manipulated-by-pr-firm-paying-critics-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rotten-tomatoes-manipulated-by-pr-firm-paying-critics-report\/","title":{"rendered":"PR firm pays critics to manipulate Rotten Tomatoes, says report."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frotten-tomatoes-manipulated-by-pr-firm-paying-critics-report%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2024554&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Manipulation Allegations Surrounding Rotten \u2064Tomatoes<\/h2>\n<p>A new \u2063report has shed light on a controversial incident involving Rotten Tomatoes, the\u2064 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rotten-tomatoes-manipulated-by-pr-firm-paying-critics-report\/\" title=\"PR firm pays critics to manipulate Rotten Tomatoes, says report.\">popular movie site relied<\/a> upon by millions to determine whether a film is worth watching.\u2062 It appears that\u200c the site was allegedly manipulated by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aoc-bucks-growing-bipartisan-support-for-tiktok-ban\/\" title=\"Growing Bipartisan Support for TikTok Ban by AOC\">public relations company<\/a> in order to boost the critical reception of a particular\u2064 movie.<\/p>\n<h3>The Role of Bunker 15<\/h3>\n<p>Bunker 15, a PR firm, was enlisted \u2062to assist with the promotion of the 2018 film &#8220;Ophelia,&#8221; starring Daisy Ridley. Initially, the movie received a lackluster rating of 46% on Rotten Tomatoes.\u200b However, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vulture.com\/article\/rotten-tomatoes-movie-rating.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vulture<\/a>, Bunker 15 took matters into their own hands by paying obscure critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website to post positive reviews. These critics were allegedly compensated with $50 or more per review.<\/p>\n<p>An email from a Bunker\u200b 15 employee to a potential reviewer revealed their intentions: &#8220;It\u2019s \u2062a Sundance film and the feeling is that it\u2019s been treated a bit harshly by\u200b some critics (I\u2019m sure <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/simone-biles-withdraws-from-individual-all-around-event-to-focus-on-mental-health\/\" title=\"Simone Biles Withdraws From Individual All-Around Event To Focus On Mental Health\">sky-high expectations<\/a> were\u2062 the culprit)\u2064 so the teams involved feel like it would benefit from more input\u2063 from different critics.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When the reviewer expressed concern about potentially\u2062 disliking \u2063the film, the Bunker 15 employee\u200b assured them that negative reviews could\u200d still be published on a smaller blog that Rotten Tomatoes would not see. They even \u2064described it as a &#8220;very cool thing to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>The Impact on &#8220;Ophelia&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>As a result of Bunker 15&#8217;s \u200befforts, Rotten Tomatoes \u2062added\u2063 eight reviews \u2064to &#8220;Ophelia&#8217;s&#8221; score between October 2018 and January 2019. Seven of these reviews were favorable, and most of them came from critics who had previously reviewed other movies associated with Bunker 15, as\u200d reported by Vulture.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, &#8220;Ophelia&#8221; saw its rating climb to 62%. The\u2064 following month, IFC Films acquired the distribution rights for the film.<\/p>\n<h3>Response \u200bfrom \u2064Bunker 15<\/h3>\n<p>When approached by Vulture, Daniel Harlow, \u200bthe founder of Bunker 15, \u2064dismissed the allegations, stating, &#8220;Wow,\u200c you are really reaching there. \u2026 We \u2063have thousands of writers in our distribution\u200b list. A small handful have set up a specific \u200dsystem where filmmakers can sponsor or pay to have them review a film.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>The Flawed Rotten Tomatoes System<\/h3>\n<p>One of the issues with Rotten Tomatoes scores is\u200b that they are posted after only a few reviews have been submitted. This\u2064 allows film companies to screen their movies for selected critics and delay the review embargo, ensuring that \u2064positive reviews can\u2063 influence the Rotten Tomatoes score before a majority of\u2064 critics have a chance to weigh in.<\/p>\n<p>Vulture highlighted the case of &#8220;Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,&#8221; which \u200cinitially had a score of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and enjoyed a successful\u200c opening. However, as more \u200creviews came in, the score dropped to the 40-50% range, resulting\u2064 in a significant decline\u2064 in \u200cthe film&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/report-emma-stone-considering-following-scarlett-johanssons-footsteps-by-suing-disney\/\" title=\"Report: Emma Stone Considering Following Scarlett Johansson\u2019s Footsteps By Suing Disney\">box office performance<\/a> during its second weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Filmmaker Paul Schrader, \u2063who was once a critic himself, commented on the situation, saying, \u2064&#8221;The studios didn\u2019t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don\u2019t like it. But the\u200d system is broken. \u2063Audiences are dumber. Normal people don\u2019t go through reviews \u2062like\u2064 they used \u2062to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So \u200bthey do.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent report exposes alleged manipulation of Rotten Tomatoes, the popular movie site relied upon by millions to gauge a film&#8217;s worthiness. Bunker 15, a PR company, was supposedly involved in boosting the critical reception of the 2018 movie &#8220;Ophelia,&#8221; featuring Daisy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":2024555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2024554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2024554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2024555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2024554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2024554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2024554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}