Brett Ratner told Entertainment Weekly:

“The worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes,” said Ratner, whose company RatPac Entertainment co-financed Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (among dozens of other Warner Bros. titles). “I think it’s the destruction of our business. I have such respect and admiration for film criticism. When I was growing up film criticism was a real art. And there was intellect that went into that. And you would read Pauline’s Kael’s reviews, or some others, and that doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s about a number. A compounded number of how many positives vs. negatives. Now it’s about, ‘What’s your Rotten Tomatoes score?’ And that’s sad, because the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low on Batman v Superman I think it put a cloud over a movie that was incredibly successful.”

“People don’t realize what goes into making a movie like that,” Ratner continued. “It’s mind-blowing. It’s just insane, it’s hurting the business, it’s getting people to not see a movie. In Middle America it’s, ‘Oh, it’s a low Rotten Tomatoes score so I’m not going to go see it because it must suck.’ But that number is an aggregate and one that nobody can figure out exactly what it means, and it’s not always correct. I’ve seen some great movies with really abysmal Rotten Tomatoes scores. What’s sad is film criticism has disappeared. It’s really sad.”

Rotten Tomatoes ‘the destruction of our business,’ director says

What Brett Ratner is trying to tell you is that professional movie criticism like Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin, etc…. those days are dead and gone. Movie reviews being written by paid movie critics are a thing of the past now. These days, real movie viewers like myself can go online and get on Rotten Tomatoes give it a score and write a review yourself. You can do that at places like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB and things like that. Nowadays, we are now the movie critics. I do agree that these things are definitely hurting the industry. People refusing to see a movie just because other people thinks it’s bad.

What he’s trying to tell you is that just because other people think a movie is bad, doesn’t mean it’s a bad film. I have seen some great films out there myself that everyone hates. When I watch a movie, I don’t go by other people’s opinions. I always go by my own. That’s kind of why I went and saw “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” as a matter of fact. Since so many people were shitting on that movie, I had to see it for myself out of curiosity and it turned out to be an amazing film. I really meant that. I fucking LOVED “Dawn of Justice”. I thought it was a perfect superhero film and Ben was just phenomenal as Batman. I don’t understand what the hell everyone is complaining about?

With that being said, I fuckin’ hate Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t even go there. If a movie looks interesting to me, I’ll go see it… I don’t care what the reviews are. Brett does have a point that sites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB and such are taking the fun out of enjoying a movie.

When Brett said all that above, it pissed off a lot of people especially the entertainment media… I’m seeing articles slamming the hell out of Brett for this. Guess they can’t take the truth, hey? No wonder we’re seeing a decline of box office numbers in Hollywood movies as of late… blame it on Rotten Tomatoes for sure!

Kev