Studios Are Blaming Rotten Tomatoes For Pirates of the Caribbean & Baywatch Tanking at The Box Office

Both Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch received "rotten" scores in the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes, with the former getting 31% and the latter getting 18%. This isn't surprising. Who asked for a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film? And why make a movie out of a 90's show that was mocked back then? With the price of cinematic experience getting more expensive these days, more people are relying on Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes to decide whether or not a movie is worth the ticket price, and I'm glad that we're living in that era. Now, the studios are reportedly blaming the critic aggregate site for the films' disappointing box office results.

According to Deadline, Insiders close to both movies blame Rotten Tomatoes, saying that 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 these 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 computes the its ratings, and the fact that these scores run on Fandango (which owns RT) is an even bigger problem."

The report points out that the both films were on track to earn $90M-$100M over four and $50M over five days respectively, and when Rotten Tomatoes released their scores, their estimates dropped. The report also claims that some studio insiders want to hold off critic screenings until opening day or cancel them all together "There's just not a great date on the calendar to open a poorly reviewed movie," a studio marketing vet said.

I don't know why the studios actually considered making these garbage films. When i saw the trailers for both Pirates and Baywatch, I just had a feeling that they're both gonna flop. Why are the studios blaming critics when their films are tanking at the box office? Why not just focus on making more creative films? Thank Rotten Tomatoes for helping people determine which movies are worth watching in theaters.

It looks like Steven Spielberg's meaningful quote is becoming more prophetic by the year. Here's what he said to THR:

"There's eventually going to be an implosion — or a big meltdown. There's going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm. We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western. It doesn't mean there won't be another occasion where the Western comes back and the superhero movie someday returns."

Hopefully, this will teach studios a lesson on what to focus on next and which franchises to discontinue.

Related: Pirates Of The Caribbean Franchise Will Not Continue Unless Johnny Depp Is On Board