Film scoring websites are "boycotted", box office is unreasonable

it's National Day holiday again, and it's time for the movie to be released. In view of the limited breadth of people's attention, it is impossible to take full account of a large number of upcoming films. In the current era of the development of the Internet, many people's choice is to decide whether to watch a movie and which movie to watch based on the results of the scoring website, and this decision is universal.

in recent years, movie scoring websites such as Douban, rotten Tomato (Rotten Tomatoes) and Metacritics increasingly influence people's decisions on film and television works, and even play a guiding role at the box office. The rating website has also aroused the dissatisfaction of some film and television companies, the film and television industry and relevant departments.

in the mass media, any point of view has the possibility to grow and spread exponentially, especially in the Internet environment. So, how is the film review mechanism of these film review sites formed? What are the unique features of different scoring sites that can attract a large number of users? And then again, do these rating websites really have to take the blame for the decline in the film's box office?

strong > 1. Movie scoring websites are very popular. Different websites have their own characteristics / strong >

looking at domestic movie scoring websites, the one with the highest recognition should be Douban. As far as the author is concerned, every time a new film is released, or when looking for a movie on weekdays, I have to go to Douban to see the ratings and comments, and so are many people. In the long run, netizens have summed up the rules of film selection according to the data such as the ratio of Douban to the different options of the film and the type of the film, which shows Douban's position in the film rating.

according to the scoring mechanism, Douban's mechanism is arithmetic average, and the most obvious consequence of this mechanism is that the water army will affect the movie scoring. Specifically, however, the movie score should be combined with the number of graders. Generally speaking, when the ratings of the two films are the same, the more people will look better.

this is because in the process of transmission, the earlier the film spreads to the audience, the more it fits with the target audience of the film. For example, in the early days, a film attracts people who like its style. If the film is really praiseworthy, then the rating will not be low and will spread further. At this point, it will attract people who are not interested in this type of film but are curious, which may lead to a reduction in the score.

in addition, audiences may take more care of unpopular high-quality movies because of a "sense of justice", and it is easy to have a rebellious mentality to popular movies. It is also a high-scoring movie, one of which is relatively popular, and we may think it is "not bad" after watching it. However, for unpopular movies with the same or similar scores, the audience will have a feeling of "digging for treasure" and subconsciously give high scores and want to recommend them to more people.

compared with the mechanism of Douban, the scoring mechanism of the famous American film review website "rotten Tomato (Rotten Tomatoes)" appears to be more standardized.

the movie scoring website was boycotted. The mechanism of the unreasonable rotten tomato carried by the box office" pot "is based on professional evaluation, supplemented by public evaluation, and the scoring logic is polarized. There is a certain threshold to score on rotten tomatoes. In order to qualify as a film critic on rotten tomatoes, you must first send your resume to show your film criticism ability, and have a certain number of fans to accumulate, and will be supervised by professional editors after obtaining the qualification.

in terms of film quality, the score of rotten tomato reflects the ratio of professional film critics to netizens who like the film. If a film gets a high score, it means that people are very likely to like the film, but it does not indicate the degree of classics. Therefore, it may be difficult for a niche film to have a high degree of freshness on rotten tomatoes, even if it is a good one.

IMDb (Internet Movie Database, Internet Movie Database) is an online database of movies, actors and TV productions. Its evaluation is defined as public evaluation, the scoring mechanism is a 10-point system, and its algorithm is logically based on weighted scores. Its ratings focus on dramatic films and television, and only users who regularly score are counted, and only films for cinemas are eligible to run.

the movie rating website has been boycotted, while the unreasonable Metacritic at the box office is a website that collects reviews on movies, TV programs, music albums and games. Give priority to professional evaluation, supplemented by public evaluation. Its calculation formula is weighted average, which is generally distributed according to the status and level of the raters.

because IMDb is mainly scored by the masses, it is easy to be influenced by the outside world because it can hire water army. IMDb generally focuses on the film itself, while rotten tomato takes into account more aspects, such as plagiarism, human feelings and so on.

it can be seen that different movie scoring websites have formed their own characteristics due to different scoring mechanisms. Many scoring websites have a large number of users, and the "combat effectiveness" of netizens at home and abroad is comparable, especially for some works of not so high quality, the poor reviews on the scoring websites also have an impact on them to a certain extent. at the same time, the scoring website has also attracted the attention of the industry and relevant departments.

strong > 2. Movie scoring websites play a guiding role, but should not carry the "pot" of declining box office / strong >

undeniably, movie scoring websites such as Douban and rotten tomatoes are increasingly affecting netizens' decision-making ability. Originally, it is a matter for audiences to entertain themselves to evaluate whether a movie is good or bad, but when the influence of rating websites expands year by year, things are not so simple. Hollywood and other film and television production companies believe that it is because of the poor reviews given by rating websites that have led to a sharp decline in box office results.

in China, there have also been incidents in which there are differences among audiences, film critics and film parties on film ratings, and the number of times is not small.

as early as 2013, Feng Xiaogang was angry at netizens and film critics for his low scores on the rating website for "private customization": "there is a group of people, especially those on Douban, who are wolves with big tails, pretending to understand movies, bullshit!" Why are you still talking about montage? do you know what montage is? "

at the end of December last year, online discussions on platforms such as Douban and Maoyan were expanded by the Film Bureau. The film side believes that there is a phenomenon of malicious bad reviews in such platforms, resulting in a serious impact on the film's reputation. However, users believe that film and television works are intended for the public and should accept different voices, rather than simply and rudely characterizing the opinions of the audience as "malicious brushing points."

since then, the Review Department of People's Daily issued a comment entitled "Chinese films should have the capacity for one star", believing that creation and criticism complement each other, and that refusing criticism is not conducive to the further development of the film itself.

in spite of this, the phenomenon of throwing the "pot" to the movie rating website still exists. Not long ago, for example, Yang Yongchun, the director of Li Lei and Han Meimei, posted on Weibo that the film had encountered malicious bad reviews on Douban.

in fact, although the scoring website plays a guiding role in the box office, it does not completely determine the box office performance.

Yves Berquist of the Entertainment Technology Research Center of the University of Southern California has compiled film ratings and box office performance data since 2000 and found that the ratings of rotten tomato websites have far less powerful impact on the box office than previously thought.

for example, "Beach Ranger" and "meme Fantasy Adventure" released this summer have big names, but their ratings are still very low. As for Hollywood's view that "poor reviews will have a negative guiding effect on the audience's decision-making" is also biased. After research, it is found that there is no significant difference between professional film critics and audiences, especially for films with strong box office performance. To some extent, this also shows that the audience tends to be professional in the identification of "bad films", so as to automatically stay away from bad films, rather than being influenced by ratings.

of course, any rating website may not avoid the existence of "water army", but in most cases, the audience is based on their own viewing experience and freely express their views on the website. Under the subjective feeling, the score is not regarded as the absolute standard, many years of market education makes the aesthetic level of the audience more and more mature, many former amateur evaluation is professional, but also gradually occupies an important position.

in addition, scoring websites are also trying to improve the scoring mechanism. For example, Douban introduced an "abnormal scoring" avoidance mechanism. If an abnormal score is detected by the system, it will be automatically removed from the score. Therefore, although Douban's mechanism is still relatively simple and rough, with the increase in the number of users, the impact of a single score on the overall score will be reduced, coupled with the account real-name system, it is not easy to give malicious bad reviews.

in the final analysis, the ratings of audiences and film critics are only for reference and do not determine the quality of the film or even the direction of the box office, which can only be determined by the film itself. As a film side, we should not question whether the comments on the rating website are fair, but should devote ourselves to improving the quality of the film.

now, many film and television companies hope to improve their box office performance through the addition of large-scale productions and special effects, but the high cost of investment means they have to take more risks, and audiences will not be deceived by so-called big productions. The only way is to make a high-quality film with your heart, and you can naturally get a "double harvest" that is acclaimed and well-received.

(author of titanium media: the most geek, article / Orient also falls)

Editor: mary