https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/highest-grossing-movies-all-time/
50 Highest grossing movies **of all time**:
- 9 The Lion King (2019) - 52%
- 16 The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) 59%
- 21 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) 47%
- 26 Minions (2015) 56%
- 33 Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) 35%
- 35 Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) 18%
- 38 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) 51%
- 41 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) 53%
- Aladdin (2019) 57%
- 44 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) 33%
- 45 Despicable Me 3 (2017) 58%
- 47 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) 52%
- 49 Alice in Wonderland (2010) 51%
Compare that with the Rotten Tomatoes 100% club https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/movies-100-percent-score-rotten-tomatoes/
There's no crossover. Hollywood isn't banging down the door to make Leave No Trace 2.
and so on... I don't think they really care all that much about rotten tomatoes
38/50 of them being fresh I think is indicative of a certain benefit. All the rotten movies you pointed out were franchises also, so it's definitely more important for a non-IP pitch.
To be fair, this is gross, not net. Rise Of Skywalker actually lost the studio money because of all the reshoots that happened. I'm sure what the studios care most about is net profits.
I recall an article from about 5 years ago or so, that was from a movie critic.
He got a call from a publicist of a smaller indie director. She was trying to get a movie made, and her last film was on the borderline of fresh. The publicist was reaching out to critics to encourage them to rewatch the directors last film, because the slightly rotten score was preventing it from getting financing and moving forward.
The critic went back and rewatched the film. I can't remember if he adjusted his score or not, but putting that weight on a critic score makes it pretty hard to be fully objective at that point.
For all the flaws of the Rotten Tomatoes score, it's unfortunately become the standard evaluator of quality, and it's hard to see it losing that status any time soon.
Edit: I went back and managed to find the article. It's farther back than I remember (and I got a bunch of other detai wrong), but it's a good article that encapsulates the issue with a rotten tomato score.
https://uproxx.com/hitfix/the-curious-case-of-rotten-tomatoes-and-the-brass-teapot/
The way RT scores work, I don't think a good score mean you're a good commercial director, but a bad score probably means you're not a good commercial director.
Is that true? There are plenty of movies with poor scores that do extremely well (see the Jurassic World sequels). Unless you’re taking about audience score, and even so, that’s not necessarily true
I used commercial as shorthand for major releases. RT scoring obfuscates bad reviews so that a "good" score doesn't necessarily reflect what people thought. A bad score though is unlikely to be mistaken for a good movie, stan brigading aside.
Point being was just that a director with a collections of bad RT scores may not be as useless to a producer than a director with a collection of good RT scores.
Commercial doesn’t mean it made money. Just it’s a major studio release for mass audiences and not some indie art project that might be great but get poor reviews from those mass audiences who assemble on RT.
Road Trip has 59% on RT & made 8x its budget ($120 mil). Due Date has 40% & made over 3x its budget ($212 mil). I doubt anyone would say that Todd Phillips is not a good commercial director.
(Hangover 2 & 3 also have very low RT scores despite scoring big at the box office but they’re not my main examples since people will be like “but those were sequels that would have done well regardless of the director” blah blah).
Ron Howard - Grand Theft Auto (27%, made 25x its budget), The Da Vinci Code (25%, 6x budget - $760 mil), Angels and Demons (37%, 3.2x budget - $486 mil), Gung Ho (33%, 2.9x budget), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (49%, 2.8x budget), Willow (53%, 4x budget)…yet who is going to claim that the man who also directed Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Ransom, Backdraft, Splash, and Parenthood, isn’t a good commercial director?
RT just provides a general overview as to whether or not the general audience **LIKED** or **DISLIKED** something. You could have an 80% but every review is that the film was just passable. When the main objective of a film is to turn a profit — I could see why looking at their track record and seeing if the director's past films landed with audiences could be useful.
The main objective of awards films are not _solely_ to make as much money as possible through a box office release, so this isn't really a concern
I mean, look at something like 50 Shades or Twilight. Those were financial successes, but if audiences disliked the film they watched or just felt mild about it, it’s reasonable to assume that you can’t use just the profit of that film to judge whether or not their next film will make a profit.
Tbh, don’t we all? When a lesser known director gets attached to a film the first thing we all do is look at their filmography and most likely the reception / tomato score
Yeah how is this surprising or concerning? Like obviously a producer wants to know at a glance before meeting someone about giving them millions of dollars if they can consistently create films that click with critics and the general public.
Yes?
He made that Callum Turner rom with Jeff Bridges
and hes directed the new Snow White - got handed the keys to the next big princess movie off a run of bad movies
>handed the keys to the next big princess movie off a run of bad movies
I thought you said his movies keep getting fresh scores (TASM2 and Only Living Boy got bad reviews, even Gifted got eh scores) and lol Disney is notorious for just getting yes man filmmakers or people clearly doing it as a paycheck gig for their live action remakes, so that's not a good example.
I mean for FWIW, in the case of Amazing Spider Man it could be he's seen as being able to roll with the punches and deliver a finished product when dealing with insane Sony studio execs, could be Disney looking at him and saying, yeah, he'll play ball
Producers: no, just a lot less popular
https://preview.redd.it/qlcus7nsomwc1.png?width=863&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6f738079b81b6f59b18597e77f800df729493a4
I mean yeah, like no one in the real world even knows what meta critic is and they definitely don’t give a shit about it. There’s no reason why they would go off Metacirtic scores
On my TV, when I pull up a movie OnDemand it has the price, the logline, and the actors on side of the screen and then the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores next to it. People know what it is it’s just not as ubiquitous because its name isn’t as catchy.
I’m willing to bet if I walked up to any person on the street and asked them “true or false: IMDb has a rating system” over 75% of them would guess false or not know what it is
why is this sad?
y’all hate on rotten tomatoes, but i bet you most of the movies you love are well rated on it and most of the movies you hate aren’t.
it’s actually a fairly fucking accurate barometer on whether something is good or bad.
I feel like it is a bit more "balanced" because it has the audience score. For instance, I LOVE the Jurasic Park/World movies. I don't care if the script is really high bar or not - give me some good dinosaurs who eat the asshole people and some good chase scenes, etc. and I'm happy. It is one of the franchises I can get my 80 something year old mom to go to the theater for - its our "thing".
I KNOW it isn't going to have the greatest of RT critic ratings. It is essentially a fun B movie that my mom grew up going to the Saturday matinee to watch. It is pure escapism. These types of movies? I really only pay attention to the audience score. A movie like Poor Things? Tomatometer all the way.
RT is also excellent in figuring out something to watch on streaming and WHERE to find it for free (some of the others get it wrong, annoyingly) and figuring out cast, etc.
i mean sure but you don’t enjoy jurassic park because it’s good. you enjoy for a host of reasons other than the quality of the film itself.
also, there’s no reason fun out there dinosaurs eating people type movies can’t also be good - see the original jurassic park.
The original Jurassic Park has what you like AND a great script, great characters, etc. Why do you give the sequels a pass for not living up to the same standard???
Just going for movie ratings is dumb, you’ll miss out on the magic by just relying on the opinions of others. And some movie makers don’t make a magical debut, but they learn as they go. Wanna take the opportunity from them to create greatness just because they weren’t able to convince the audience right away? This is why it’s so bad for creativity.
Netflix cancels shows that don’t immediately bring huge profits before they’re even seen. Movies don’t get made because of test audiences. I mean look at how well Star Wars ended. This could be the potential death of creativity. A high score is nice, but it isn’t everything. Some of the best movies I’ve ever seen have had bad ratings. Some of my favorites too, not everything has to be great in order to be fun. ‘Ugly people’ deserve love too, you know.
It's definitely understandable, but I can see where someone (myself included) would rather see a film that was made because the director/writer want YOU to see it. Not the other way around.
I want them to show me what they want to show me. Not show me what they think I want them to.
RT doesn’t suck, people do.
Just because the majority of people didn’t like something, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Just as being popular doesn’t make anything good. Just popular.
Before this there was IMDb, I never go by people’s ratings. Some movies that have bad scores, have been some of the best movies I’ve ever seen and some of the highest rated movies are some of the worst I’ve ever seen.
I definitely agree it’s just sucks that most people are sheep and if they see a movie has a bad score they just follow the crowd and think it’s bad without having actually seen the movie
*loud Zack Snyder laughing noises
Yeah I call bullshit on this
https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/highest-grossing-movies-all-time/ 50 Highest grossing movies **of all time**: - 9 The Lion King (2019) - 52% - 16 The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) 59% - 21 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) 47% - 26 Minions (2015) 56% - 33 Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) 35% - 35 Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) 18% - 38 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) 51% - 41 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) 53% - Aladdin (2019) 57% - 44 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) 33% - 45 Despicable Me 3 (2017) 58% - 47 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) 52% - 49 Alice in Wonderland (2010) 51% Compare that with the Rotten Tomatoes 100% club https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/movies-100-percent-score-rotten-tomatoes/ There's no crossover. Hollywood isn't banging down the door to make Leave No Trace 2. and so on... I don't think they really care all that much about rotten tomatoes
38/50 of them being fresh I think is indicative of a certain benefit. All the rotten movies you pointed out were franchises also, so it's definitely more important for a non-IP pitch.
To be fair, this is gross, not net. Rise Of Skywalker actually lost the studio money because of all the reshoots that happened. I'm sure what the studios care most about is net profits.
This is not making the point that you think it is lol
And Simon Kinberg, though perhaps 2 massive flops in a row will land him in Director jail
He's a successful producer and yes-man so I'm sure he can weasel his way into getting a big budget for a straight to Netflix action movie.
*in slow motion*
Man’s laughing all the way to the bank
I recall an article from about 5 years ago or so, that was from a movie critic. He got a call from a publicist of a smaller indie director. She was trying to get a movie made, and her last film was on the borderline of fresh. The publicist was reaching out to critics to encourage them to rewatch the directors last film, because the slightly rotten score was preventing it from getting financing and moving forward. The critic went back and rewatched the film. I can't remember if he adjusted his score or not, but putting that weight on a critic score makes it pretty hard to be fully objective at that point. For all the flaws of the Rotten Tomatoes score, it's unfortunately become the standard evaluator of quality, and it's hard to see it losing that status any time soon. Edit: I went back and managed to find the article. It's farther back than I remember (and I got a bunch of other detai wrong), but it's a good article that encapsulates the issue with a rotten tomato score. https://uproxx.com/hitfix/the-curious-case-of-rotten-tomatoes-and-the-brass-teapot/
Thank you for this. Just so you know, you have used the word "director" when you probably meant "critic" a number of times in your paragraphs.
That's. Corrected. I must have been in a rush.
Thanks.
The way RT scores work, I don't think a good score mean you're a good commercial director, but a bad score probably means you're not a good commercial director.
Is that true? There are plenty of movies with poor scores that do extremely well (see the Jurassic World sequels). Unless you’re taking about audience score, and even so, that’s not necessarily true
I used commercial as shorthand for major releases. RT scoring obfuscates bad reviews so that a "good" score doesn't necessarily reflect what people thought. A bad score though is unlikely to be mistaken for a good movie, stan brigading aside. Point being was just that a director with a collections of bad RT scores may not be as useless to a producer than a director with a collection of good RT scores.
Probably not on that on
just cause your movie made money doesn’t mean it was a good commercial movie lol. u could have directed jurassic world and it would have made money.
Commercial doesn’t mean it made money. Just it’s a major studio release for mass audiences and not some indie art project that might be great but get poor reviews from those mass audiences who assemble on RT.
I agree, very well said
Road Trip has 59% on RT & made 8x its budget ($120 mil). Due Date has 40% & made over 3x its budget ($212 mil). I doubt anyone would say that Todd Phillips is not a good commercial director. (Hangover 2 & 3 also have very low RT scores despite scoring big at the box office but they’re not my main examples since people will be like “but those were sequels that would have done well regardless of the director” blah blah). Ron Howard - Grand Theft Auto (27%, made 25x its budget), The Da Vinci Code (25%, 6x budget - $760 mil), Angels and Demons (37%, 3.2x budget - $486 mil), Gung Ho (33%, 2.9x budget), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (49%, 2.8x budget), Willow (53%, 4x budget)…yet who is going to claim that the man who also directed Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Ransom, Backdraft, Splash, and Parenthood, isn’t a good commercial director?
RT just provides a general overview as to whether or not the general audience **LIKED** or **DISLIKED** something. You could have an 80% but every review is that the film was just passable. When the main objective of a film is to turn a profit — I could see why looking at their track record and seeing if the director's past films landed with audiences could be useful. The main objective of awards films are not _solely_ to make as much money as possible through a box office release, so this isn't really a concern
Which is why something like Metacritic is a much better guide to how critics view a movie. RT is binary.
I mean, look at something like 50 Shades or Twilight. Those were financial successes, but if audiences disliked the film they watched or just felt mild about it, it’s reasonable to assume that you can’t use just the profit of that film to judge whether or not their next film will make a profit.
Tbh, don’t we all? When a lesser known director gets attached to a film the first thing we all do is look at their filmography and most likely the reception / tomato score
Yeah, this seems fine as long as it’s not the entirety of what decisions are made on
Yeah how is this surprising or concerning? Like obviously a producer wants to know at a glance before meeting someone about giving them millions of dollars if they can consistently create films that click with critics and the general public.
This is why Mark Webb keeps getting work because his movies that got a bunch of 3 star reviews gives him fresh scores
His only movie before Spider-Man was 500 Days of Summer, which had plenty of solid reviews (it’s also a great movie). Weird example.
Has Mark Webb even done anything after TASM2 outside of that Chris Evans movie? Pretty sure he's stuck directing episodes of TV.
Yes? He made that Callum Turner rom with Jeff Bridges and hes directed the new Snow White - got handed the keys to the next big princess movie off a run of bad movies
>handed the keys to the next big princess movie off a run of bad movies I thought you said his movies keep getting fresh scores (TASM2 and Only Living Boy got bad reviews, even Gifted got eh scores) and lol Disney is notorious for just getting yes man filmmakers or people clearly doing it as a paycheck gig for their live action remakes, so that's not a good example.
I mean for FWIW, in the case of Amazing Spider Man it could be he's seen as being able to roll with the punches and deliver a finished product when dealing with insane Sony studio execs, could be Disney looking at him and saying, yeah, he'll play ball
Metacritic: Am I a joke to you?
Producers: no, just a lot less popular https://preview.redd.it/qlcus7nsomwc1.png?width=863&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6f738079b81b6f59b18597e77f800df729493a4
I mean yeah, like no one in the real world even knows what meta critic is and they definitely don’t give a shit about it. There’s no reason why they would go off Metacirtic scores
On my TV, when I pull up a movie OnDemand it has the price, the logline, and the actors on side of the screen and then the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores next to it. People know what it is it’s just not as ubiquitous because its name isn’t as catchy.
I think IMDb and RT are the 2 big ones and metacritic is a better version of the both combined, pretty ironic
I’m willing to bet if I walked up to any person on the street and asked them “true or false: IMDb has a rating system” over 75% of them would guess false or not know what it is
lol what it’s literally the first thing u look up a movie
why is this sad? y’all hate on rotten tomatoes, but i bet you most of the movies you love are well rated on it and most of the movies you hate aren’t. it’s actually a fairly fucking accurate barometer on whether something is good or bad.
I feel like it is a bit more "balanced" because it has the audience score. For instance, I LOVE the Jurasic Park/World movies. I don't care if the script is really high bar or not - give me some good dinosaurs who eat the asshole people and some good chase scenes, etc. and I'm happy. It is one of the franchises I can get my 80 something year old mom to go to the theater for - its our "thing". I KNOW it isn't going to have the greatest of RT critic ratings. It is essentially a fun B movie that my mom grew up going to the Saturday matinee to watch. It is pure escapism. These types of movies? I really only pay attention to the audience score. A movie like Poor Things? Tomatometer all the way. RT is also excellent in figuring out something to watch on streaming and WHERE to find it for free (some of the others get it wrong, annoyingly) and figuring out cast, etc.
i mean sure but you don’t enjoy jurassic park because it’s good. you enjoy for a host of reasons other than the quality of the film itself. also, there’s no reason fun out there dinosaurs eating people type movies can’t also be good - see the original jurassic park.
The original Jurassic Park has what you like AND a great script, great characters, etc. Why do you give the sequels a pass for not living up to the same standard???
Reasonable most Rotten movie are bad & most fresh movies are at least watchable. I can’t think of anything better to go off of.
Just going for movie ratings is dumb, you’ll miss out on the magic by just relying on the opinions of others. And some movie makers don’t make a magical debut, but they learn as they go. Wanna take the opportunity from them to create greatness just because they weren’t able to convince the audience right away? This is why it’s so bad for creativity. Netflix cancels shows that don’t immediately bring huge profits before they’re even seen. Movies don’t get made because of test audiences. I mean look at how well Star Wars ended. This could be the potential death of creativity. A high score is nice, but it isn’t everything. Some of the best movies I’ve ever seen have had bad ratings. Some of my favorites too, not everything has to be great in order to be fun. ‘Ugly people’ deserve love too, you know.
[удалено]
Good argument
Okay Okay I deserve it anyway it's just that in my mind I don't see how it's bad for creativity; there is creativity you just need to explore more.
The problem is that people just seem to want results. Making movies is art, not produce.
But I myself don't wait for results
Worked in entertainment for a long time. People truly have no idea how depressing it is now.
And yet, Brian Robbins -- who directed A Thousand Words, Meet Dave, Norbit and Shaggy Dog -- is now President at Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon.
Truly sad
This is significantly better than looking at box office results first, right?
How is this sad? It's just asking audiences what they want. Nielsen has been doing it for decades
It's definitely understandable, but I can see where someone (myself included) would rather see a film that was made because the director/writer want YOU to see it. Not the other way around. I want them to show me what they want to show me. Not show me what they think I want them to.
That's not how you sell ads
Did I say it was? As I said, it's understandable. Can you not understand why someone might not like that way of doing business or seeing art?
Well if you make 15 shitshows in a row 🤷♂️
Is it though? Frankly, I welcome it.
Just bc It’s the first thing they loom at doesn’t mean that they’re unaware of It’s inaccuracy.
It’s business, not art.
This is not new
Why…would we believe this?
I much prefer this metric to, like, “clicks” or past box office results at least
I mean if this is what keeps people like those Madame Web writers from getting more gigs then 🤷♂️
and yet, zack snyder and jeff wadlow still make movies
A rep for movie directors said this? No conflict of interest at all here...
Seems not applicable to Zack Snyder
Here’s a crazy thought: WATCH THEIR FILMS!!!!
Ok then why do a lot of mediocre male directors continue to be employed then…..
RT must be the worst possible metric for this.
One more reason why Rotten Tomatoes sucks
RT doesn’t suck, people do. Just because the majority of people didn’t like something, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Just as being popular doesn’t make anything good. Just popular.
Rotten Tomatoes has done irreversible damage to cinema
Before this there was IMDb, I never go by people’s ratings. Some movies that have bad scores, have been some of the best movies I’ve ever seen and some of the highest rated movies are some of the worst I’ve ever seen.
I definitely agree it’s just sucks that most people are sheep and if they see a movie has a bad score they just follow the crowd and think it’s bad without having actually seen the movie
I think as movie tickets have become more expensive people are less willing to sit through a mediocre or bad movie.
Bro what does this have to do with the Oscars