Movie Critics

Patrick Harrington

Hannah Stephenson

4 March 2011

Blog Post Audience

Movie critics have a growing and monumental impact on the movie industry. These impacts can include an unexpected lapse or increase in ticket sales, a predetermined audience opinion, or an inaccurate and underdeveloped viewer consensus. These impacts are unacceptable and need to be discontinued. RottenTomatoes.com is a website that compares critic ratings to viewer ratings on any motion picture. Through this website, one is able to conclude that viewers are persuaded and motivated to concur with the ratings of professional movie critics. This often occurs unknowingly before the audience member views the movie.

Research studies show that movies with high early ratings receive higher movie revenues. This shows that critics have an overwhelming influence on ticket sales and revenue. These studies epitomize the importance of a movie receiving outstanding critic ratings early on in its premier stages. It is likely that without these good ratings, the movie would not be a financial success. These ratings being present and well advertised are what gives the “powerhouse” movies and best pictures their shine.

A movie is given both professional critic ratings and audience ratings. In order for the audience ratings to be respectively positive, the movie must be well advertised and ratings well by critics. The critics giving poor reviews will make the ticket revenue fall along with the related audience reviews. These relationships are essential to the movie industry so that upcoming movie productions may understand the importance of critic reviews.

RottenTomatoes.com and other similar websites have an increasingly influential impact on the movie market because of viewers trust in the websites. Audience members want to believe that these critics are all knowing and trustworthy. They do not however take into account any times that they did not agree with the critics. Critics rave about a movie and give it astronomically high ratings and then a viewer decides that the movie was anywhere from adequate to great, and it’s a success. However if the critics vote that a movie was bad, and the viewer enjoys it, the viewer does not take into account that the critics had a different view because they are distracted by the movie they enjoyed. For this reason, professional movie critics have an overwhelming impact on the movie industry.