Rotten Tomatoes: Useful, or Useless?

Rotten Tomatoes: Useful or Useless?

With the disappointing box office returns from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch, both studios involved have begun to blame Rotten Tomatoes for the financial lack of success. Deadline reports:

"Insiders close to both films blame Rotten Tomatoes, with Pirates and Baywatch respectively earning 32% and 19% Rotten. The critic aggregation site increasingly is slowing down the potential business of popcorn movies. Pirates 5 and Baywatch aren't built for critics but rather general audiences, and once upon a time the types of films -- a family adventure and a raunchy R-rated comedy -- were critic-proof. Many of those in the industry severely question how Rotten Tomatoes compute its ratings, and the fact that these scores urn on [the movie-ticket buying sites] Fandango (which owns RT) is an even bigger problem."

Personal Thoughts: I think that there is merit to the fact that Rotten Tomatoes affects box office. But that is no excuse for any film. If the movie is good, then it will get good scores. And both cases have been proven wrong. Deadpool, a raunchy R-rated comedy, made over 700 million dollars. Perhaps this is a case of movie studios seeking to blame something for their films' lack of success. That being said: I have not seen either films but I am going from what the general consensus is.