Rotten Tomatoes Drops Audience Score For Popcornmeter

Rotten Tomatoes is a trusted source that aggregates all review scores for film and TV and this week, they announced a change in the site’s viewable ratings.

First off, for the uninitiated, Rotten Tomatoes serves the internet as a source to head to when looking for not one but multiple reviews on a hit TV show or film that has been released. The site even goes as far back to show how older films have done in the past, with review aggregations of films like 1994’s The Crow letting fans compare it to the recently released film also called The Cro w (with a new ensemble). The site focuses on giving critics a communal voice, certifying whether films are ‘fresh’ or ‘rotten,’ hence Rotten Tomatoes.

This week, the review site underwent a drastic change that has watered down its audience score system. The new system is referred to as ‘The Popcornmeter’. The new designations show films branded with “Verified Hot,” “Hot,” or “Stale,” depending on the feedback of the Verified Audience. The new Verified Hot rating will be reserved for films and TV that score 90% or higher initially, and it will stay hot until the score falls below 80%.

How does one become a verified audience member? Rotten Tomatoes says they will verify the audience in attendance by using Fandango ticket purchases. It’s worth mentioning that RT is owned by the US Fandango platform. With this move, it appears the site favours the Fandango ticketing service due to their connection, but RT is working on collaborating with other platforms to verify purchases as well.

Recently, ‘review bombing’ has gone mainstream. Angry fans have taken to Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, and other sites to unleash their fury when things don’t go their way. The steep difference in scores between RT’s Star Wars: The Acolyte ‘s critical review and audience review could be one instance. Other instances show fans openly and brazenly targetting titles like Helldivers 2 on Steam and blasting the ‘1-star’ button due to behind-the-scenes operations (in this case, Sony requiring PC players to need a PS Network account to play the title). In this sole case, they walked back the decision and Helldivers 2 can be played on Steam without the need for a PSN account.

Either way, implementing the new rule stifles the audience score for better or worse. Fans can check out the rules rollout on the official Rotten Tomatoes website .