MovieReviewIntelligence.com To Shut Down: NYT

The movie review aggregator’s editor and publisher David A. Gross told the New York Times “We just don’t have access to the big networks” of web viewers, citing Rottentomatoes.com as an example. Rotten Tomatoes was acquired by Warner Bros in 2011 and has a major presence on Apple’s iTunes. Gross said the site will cease operation at the end of April. The fomer 20th Century Fox marketing executive started Movie Review Intelligence in 2009. Although many at the time thought movie critics, particularly at newspapers, were a vanishing breed, Gross believed that critics continued to affect business even as social media and mass marketing seemed to override concerns about quality. “Reviews are more influential now than ever,” Gross said in a farewell statement that suggested as movie consumption converges around mobile and online transaction points “we will continue to see better reviewed movies over-perform at the box-office, and poorly reviewed movies under-perform.” Gross was unable to find an ally that might improve its reach along the lines of Amazon’s IMDb.com.

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