The only shocking thing about this story is that it actually got published. The Decomposition of Rotten Tomatoes: The most overrated metric in movies is erratic, reductive, and easily hacked — and yet has Hollywood in its grip.
TL:DR - Hollywood PR firm, Bunker 15, was paying for good reviews for bad movies. They were not paying a lot. They were paying $50 for reviews, though you were free to like or hate the movies. (The one they tracked in the article was Ophelia.)
“The studios didn’t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don’t like it,” says the filmmaker Paul Schrader. “But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people don’t go through reviews like they used to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So they do.”
There is more, how diversity was used to push for more critics being included in the Tomatometer. (Are we shocked?) Or how the site was gamed to get Ant Man 3 great reviews for the opening weekend. (Those great reviews didn't hold up, but they did get a whole bunch of people to ge see the movie, before word got out about how it sucked.) Go read the whole thing.
The actual problems go deeper than this article can explain. See this excerpt from Critical Drinker's Open Bar: Drinker's Chasers - Rotten Tomatoes Busted! Fake Reviews And Bribery
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