Do Rotten Tomatoes scores often predict a movie's box office success (or lack thereof)?

I go watch movies in theater every 2 weeks, and when choosing what to see, I decide often based on Rotten Tomato critic score. This score is now shown by Siri after each time I ask which movies are playing, so I don't even have to visit the Rotten Tomatoes website.

My point is, I use that RT rating to decide what to see, and many others probably do too. I'm curious to know how much correlation there is between a movie's RT score and its box office performance.

box-office

Best Answer

Nope. Based on this plot (by film statistics specialist Stav J. Davis) of 81 films that grossed more than $20M in 2012, there's no straight-line correlation between the Rotten Tomatoes critics score (e.g. public reviews) and the amount that each film made at the box office:

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There's also no significant correlation between the user review scores (although the chi value was fractionally higher if you exclude all films that grossed less than $100M

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In short, how good a film rates on Rotten Tomatoes has little bearing on its box-office take.

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Do Rotten Tomatoes scores matter?

Most people usually want to select a movie to watch based on its ratings and reviews. But one cannot completely rely on online movie rating websites. A good movie can get the worst ratings, and the worst movie can get good ratings occasionally.

Why is Rotten Tomatoes so important?

Rotten Tomatoes and the Tomatometer score are the world's most trusted recommendation resources for quality entertainment. As the leading online aggregator of movie and TV show reviews from critics, we provide fans with a comprehensive guide to what's Fresh \u2013 and what's Rotten \u2013 in theaters and at home.

Why are rotten tomato scores so low?

One of the biggest culprits behind these popular movies losing their Rotten Tomatoes ratings is the process by which critic reviews are boiled down either being "for" or "against" a film.

What does Rotten Tomatoes rating mean?

As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten.

Why Rotten Tomatoes scores don't mean what they seem

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