Rotten Tomatoes Quietly Buried Film at Center of Exposé
Rotten Tomatoes has seemingly removed the movie Ophelia from several areas of its site after a Vulture article reported that a PR company was paying critics to review their films.
The Vulture piece, published Wednesday, details the steps a PR company called Bunker 15 takes to ensure their movies are “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes’ so-called “Tomatometer.” Allegedly, the PR company has been paying critics $50 or more for each review. (Rotten Tomatoes supposedly prohibits “reviewing based on a financial incentive.”)
The specific case cited is the 2018 Daisy Ridley movie Ophelia, which was initially given a Tomatometer rating of 46 percent (films under 60 percent are deemed “rotten”) after 13 critics’ reviews were logged onto the site following advanced screenings. But after Bunker 15 reportedly started paying critics to review Ophelia, the film’s Tomatometer ranking climbed to a “fresh” 62 percent.
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But since the article went up Ophelia has vanished from Rotten Tomatoes’ interface. When searching “Ophelia” on the site, as of this writing, 43 movie titles appear, none of which are the 2018 Ophelia mentioned in the Vulture story.
Further, if you head to Daisy Ridley’s actor page on the site, you’ll see all of her other titles—except Ophelia. Some of the movie’s other stars—like Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, George MacKay, and Tom Felton—have also had their pages scrubbed of Ophelia.
Ophelia has disappeared from the page of the film’s co-writer, Semi Challas, although the film still appears on the director Claire McCarthy’s page, as well as co-writer Lisa M. Klein’s page. In McCarthy and Klein’s cases, though, the film doesn’t appear in their filmographies. It only appears as their “Lowest Rated” movie.
Rotten Tomatoes did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Vulture reports that Rotten Tomatoes “delisted a number of” Bunker 15’s movies and “sent a warning” to writers who had reviewed them. The piece does not clarify which movies have been removed. Ophelia, the movie at the heart of the exposé, appears to be one of those films.
“We take the integrity of our scores seriously and do not tolerate any attempts to manipulate them,” Rotten Tomatoes told Vulture. “We have a dedicated team who monitors our platforms regularly and thoroughly investigates and resolves any suspicious activity.”
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