How Rotten Tomatoes Has Changed Movies & Hollywood According To Shyamalan

Rotten Tomatoes has seriously changed movies and Hollywood as a whole, according to M. Night Shyamalan, but the results have varied.

According to M. Night Shyamalan, Rotten Tomatoes has been having an outsized effect on the Hollywood landscape and movies as a whole. Having directed many films, including the hit The Sixth Sense and the box office flop The Happening, Shyamalan holds a unique position in Hollywood that has lasted for decades. With so many years as a public figure, Shyamalan has seen first-hand the changes in the industry.

The major change that Shyamalan cites is the rise of Rotten Tomatoes, the voting aggregate site that allows users to rate movies and TV shows to determine if franchises are “rotten” or “fresh“. Having launched in 1998, the site has grown exponentially as users scramble to vote on movies and TV. Yet, in an interview with Yahoo!, Shyamalan spoke out about how Rotten Tomatoes changed the industry and removed some of the uniqueness of Hollywood. Check out his quote below:

“It’s fascinating when we talk about kind of the appetite of Hollywood [has now], and how Hollywood represents a kind of a systemization of art now, which didn’t exist then. [Now] there’s kind of a group forum of what one perceives art to be, like Rotten Tomatoes and stuff, where it’s perceived that 200 people say this about the film, and then the audience is having an aggregate reaction. At least that’s what you’re seeing. The system is even making more decisions based on that. I think back in 1998, 1999, it wasn’t quite that way. We were still an original movie industry, and so the things that would move decisions to make movies were, ‘Are they impactful?’ ‘Is it something we’ve never seen before?’ Those were the metrics back then.”

Related: How Many M. Night Shyamalan Movies REALLY Have Twists

The Positives And Negatives Of Rotten Tomatoes

There are both good and bad aspects of Rotten Tomatoes, despite Shyamalan’s critique. In terms of the positives, the site gives users a chance to respond glowingly to projects, which can encourage other users to seek out a movie that they may not have otherwise viewed. At other times, it does little more than give prejudiced critics and audiences an excuse to review-bomb diverse shows, including The Last of Us, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Shyamalan’s point about diversifying Hollywood’s output is also fairly salient, as Rotten Tomatoes tends to default to rewarding projects for familiar IPs. Audiences and critics will be more likely to engage with pre-existing products, which funnels Hollywood toward those targets. While it gives users more of a say in the industry, if it is playing a role in Hollywood, Shyamalan isn’t wrong that it will diminish newer projects.

How M. Night Shyamalan’s Movies Have Performed On Rotten Tomatoes

Shyamalan’s own movies have had an incredibly mixed reception on Rotten Tomatoes with nine “Fresh” projects and nine “Rotten“, setting aside his guest appearances, though Knock at the Cabin earned his best score since 2016. His lowest-performing project, The Last Airbender scored just five percent on the Tomatometer, while his highest-performing work as a director remains The Sixth Sense with an 86 percent score. With such mixed performances, it’s no wonder M. Night Shyamalan dislikes the site, even if he is right about the overall effect.

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