Erik Lundegaard is clearly an intelligent guy. But yesterday in Slate, he published one of the stupidest articles about box office I have ever read.
Entitled, "Why We Need Movie Reviewers - Despite popular belief, critically acclaimed movies actually sell better," this freakshow of pretzel logic is grotesque enough to actually look a lot like one of my less successful attempts to use math and odd stats to their worst end.
Here, he uses Rotten Tomatoes as a barometer...first HUGE mistake. I love RT. It is a great site and a great idea and as a basis for statistical analysis, you should probably poll Patrick Goldstein's neighbors as soon as use those numbers for a factual analysis. First, of course, any stat based exclusively on "rotten" or "fresh" or "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" is simpleminded by its very nature. But even more importantly, RT offers no notion, in rotten or fresh, of how rotten or how fresh or how many people are reading what percentage of the critics who are being counted and, in fact, the site is deciding "rotten or fresh" on their own for the critics with the widest audience reach, those in "Cream of the Crop."
The second HUGE mistake is, somehow, in spite of indicating a lot of knowledge in general, thinking that bulk numbers - as in, every film released on as many as 100 screens - can be used to analyze anything in a reasonable way. The math of the studio Dependents is quite different than the true indies, much less the small releases of under 300 screens and the behemoths of summer and the holiday season.
The biggest, perhaps, problem of all, is that after trying to take a run at this idea, and examining his data, Lundegaard didn’t just throw this junk science out. To wit… what is the leggiest wide-release movie (domestically, since it is the only stat we can use for all US releases as of now) of The Summer of 2008?
Anyone?
What Happens In Vegas.
It’s the only movie even close to 4x opening with a $20.2 million start and $78.4 million in the bank domestically.
Rotten Tomatoes percentage? 27%
Using the same standards, Iron Man has an RT of 93%, Indiana Jones IV of 77%. With that 16% difference, the two films are still neck and neck for who will be the top grosser of the summer so far and likely to the end.
And riddle me this… how can Lundegaard or anyone else assume that critics are increasing box office when “good” and “bad” are not the exclusive provenance of critics. There is no sane and knowledgeable person I know who does not accept that word of mouth is the most powerful element on the ongoing box office of a movie after the first week, just as marketing is the most powerful element going into that first week. Of the Top Five openers this summer to date, 2 were “rotten” on RT.
Moreover… only FIVE of the summer’s sixteen wide releases so far scored as well as a 70% on RT. 60% - 70% may count as “fresh,” but who is kidding who? But even including the two 60% - 70% films, we’re still only at seven… fewer than half the summer wide releases.
And of those eight “rotten” wide releases this summer, only three will fail to gross $50 million domestic… just as three will crack $100 million. But it’s no coincidence that the three “rotten” movies that will not crack $50 million are also the three with the only under-$20 million openings of the summer… the real barometer of how the vast majority of wide releases will perform every single years for many years now.
There is nothing in Lundegaard’s story that suggests in any sustainable way that critics reviews have a direct cause and effect on box office in a real way. That said, there is another phenomenon, not measure by RT or anyone else, where it does come into effect, I think. And that is when a movie has a lot of love, a strong opening then gets spun into a phenomenology that they makes people want to see the film, even if they were not in the target audience.
That is the difference, for instance, between an Iron Man and a Kung Fu Panda and an Incredible Hulk. Iron Man not only had strong word of mouth, but the chattering class talked it up endlessly the week before and after opening, while Kung Fu Panda, while well reviewed by RT standards, was still relegated to being a kids movie and Hulk was still a geek movie. They didn’t become part of the media culture’s idea of an “everyone movie.”
In a different way, there was a similar run for Sex & The City, which got killed in the reviews, but hit style pages as an event for women of a certain age and made making a party out of going a must for many.
Different again was Indiana Jones, which got smacked by early negativity in the New York Times, got mixed reviews (more positive than not, overall), and was then scooped up by audiences regardless of what anyone said… as still has a shot at passing Iron Man to be the biggest film of the summer. And even if it doesn’t, look at the difference in attitude, RT ranking, and even Lundegaard’s attempts at real screen count between the two and explain how media decides anything.
Lundegaard’s piece
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/07/wow_thats_dumb.html