TTRPGWhiz

...uh, yes, exactly. The question isn't "do movie studios do shady stuff". It is specifically, "is there evidence of movie studios paying reputable critics for positive reviews". That is the conversation we are having.

Cool stories! What outlets were his reviews published in? ...oh, none? They were just blurbs in local newspapers? And as soon as someone at an actual publication (Newsweek) smelled a rat, the whole thing came apart? Crazy. So right now we're looking at: two incidents, one in 2000, the other in 2018, neither of which involve a reputable film critic or outlet. As for the ostrich: ask them if while they've got their head down there, they might look for a single scrap of evidence that a real (not fake) movie critic working for a publication got paid money by a studio to write a review. If you guys want to move the goalposts to "movie studios do shady stuff to promote their movies", then go for it. No disagreement there. If you want to stick to trying to prove that studios pay legitimate critics for fake reviews, you're gonna have to...what was it..."try again, try harder".

So demonstrate it! I am legitimately interested in this topic, which is why I keep referring to searching for stories. All I've found is a bunch of references to the one Vulture article about one PR firm paying for reviews for one movie. People repeating, "no, but it's really happening" isn't very convincing.

Not appearing in this post: one shred of evidence Anyway, back on topic: maybe an ace reporter from a fictional world has uncovered this kind of widespread yet completely undocumented corruption!

Burden of proof is on the people making accusations. If y'all can point to a single instance of someone working at an outlet, and not out of their second bedroom, being directly paid for positive reviews, then spill that tea. Every google search I've done so far points to the same article about paying absolute nobodies about $50 a piece to elevate the profile (not the box office; not that that's the larger point, but it's still a point) of one--literally one--independent movie. One movie.

Credibility and trust *in whom*? You won't find the kinds of things you're talking about in reviews at Collider, The Onion, NYT, Empire, Entertainment Weekly, whatever your actual organization of choice is. Even ScreenRant wouldn't stoop that low. You're talking about nobodies. Does it undermine credibility and trust in something like Rotten Tomatoes? Yeah probably. But again: trust junk sources, get junk info.

Yep. And other people, myself included, are free to point out that your opinions exhibit signs of ComicsGatey/alt-righty/DOGEy rhetoric. Freedom is fun!

Sean Gunn (I think it’s just a kaiju, none of the marketing—toys included, usually the biggest spoiler culprit—lists a name)

How will you know if it has dialogue you don't like until you buy a ticket and watch the movie? It's hilarious to me that people who claim to never be offended about anything are the *first* to come into any and every comic book movie thread with, "this better not be about the feminist agenda", or whatever is up your butt that day. Call if offended, triggered, whatever you want; you don't like the product and you don't have to watch it. But damn, you sure do like to complain about things that may or may not be in it.

Being constantly offended doesn't mean you're right, it means you're too narcissistic to tolerate opinions different than your own.

How many comments like "blue-haired patriarchy hater", "DEI trash pile", and "woke garbage" need to be posted before it's considered "into politics"?

It reads like the issue is less about the politics and more about how it’s addressed. If it isn’t ham-fisted, would that be OK? I’m dubious.

Yea, the first is one of the few I found earlier. The takeaway there was, “if ‘lower level’ Rotten Tomatoes critics can be bought for $50 a pop, then they probably aren’t legitimate critics”. Reinforced why I never reference that site. And again, it was an indie studio buying positive reviews so that it could gain wider distribution. I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about in this thread about a major summer superhero movie.

Supes gets arrested and handcuffed and is explicitly called an illegal immigrant in Man of Steel. Which is the stated favorite Superman movie of at least one person who does not want to see this Superman movie be political. Help.

…it’s Superman. His story has INTENTIONALLY been an immigrant story since day one. What are we even doing.

I literally wrote “not necessarily yours, Shard”. As for the rest, again, if people are getting their movie quality tips from junk sources, that’s on them. I’ve never once seen any of the reviews that I’ve read engaging in that kind of verbatim text copying. Fake accounts writing undermining posts isn’t the same thing as paying an actual critic to write a favorable review. That’s a wild comparison.

The Marvels, since that was the mentioned example, has a 50 on Metacritic, with about as many “average” reviews as positive, and a third of that negative. No fan voting, no YT snake oil salesmen. Who is one professional film critic whose reviews are consistently much more positive than the average? And how does this prove payola and not just a “glass half full” perspective?* This idea (not necessarily yours, Shard) that you can’t trust critics from newspapers and magazines but people like CriticalDrinker are here to show you the truth, is mind boggling to me. Maybe there is some truth to studios “buying” good press with access. But anyone who takes their cues from Comicsgate-adjacent “critics” (aka, “some dude with a YouTube channel”) is probably predisposed toward a worldview that places them atop a pile of “sleeping sheeple”, or whatever adorable self-important phrase is in vogue on the social media platforms they canoodle on. “Comics fans”** increasingly treat giant blockbuster movies based on the things they claim to love like indie bands that made it big, except even those indie fans would have gotten over it after 17 years. I’d be interested to see any news story about studios paying movie critics for positive reviews. AFAIK there are two or three, and they’re explicitly about independent movies. *I looked at the critic profile for Molly Freeman, who gave The Marvels its highest weighted score with a 90. Molly also gave Brave New World a 40. Her average review score is a 59. Does Molly seem like a paid critic? **Almost every time someone comes here with negative opinions about a movie based on something they say they care about, they also mention that “I haven’t read a comic in 15 years, ever since [insert silly reason].” These movies aren’t for you. Comics fandom is about five percent of MCU fandom. Get over it.

It’s wild that this isn’t the default take.

Yeah there was a bit of a boom in studios mining the indies for material. You still see a few here and there, but I think most of that wave is over, especially since TV is a more natural fit for adapting comics series. There are a few characters in that list that I think are probably more popular than some MCU headliners. Hellboy vs. Shang-Chi, for example.

Men in Black, 300, Kingsman, Edge of Tomorrow, Wanted, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Red, Road to Perdition, Sin City, 2 Guns, Surrogates, Timecop, Atomic Blonde, RIPD, 30 Days of Night, From Hell, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Crow, The Mask, Ghost World, American Splendor, Hellboy, Barb Wire, Cowboys & Aliens, Tank Girl, A History of Violence, Josie and the Pussycats, Judge Dredd (x2), Kick-Ass, Richie Rich, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Casper, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I just don't think the filmmakers were so beholden to the comics storyline that these things made much difference.

I dunno. They managed to tell a version of the Infinity War saga without Adam Warlock, Eternity, Magus, Doom, Kang...I can't imagine Nebula was super important to the story they were telling (though she did end up with the MCU's best start-to-finish character arc).

The Brood Saga is good stuff. Describing Chris Claremont as a 'giant' is a choice. I think generally, fans of Carol Danvers prefer her more recent adventures to things like, "I woke up suddenly pregnant and gave birth to the clone of the dude who assaulted me".

The Guardians movie was made because A) someone in Marvel's screenwriting shop chose that from the stack of teams they had rights to, and B) they needed a team in space. The first few drafts didn't even necessarily include what became the team on screen; at one point, it was the OG Guardians. There is very little evidence to suggest that movies get made because the comics do well; there is also very little evidence to suggest that if a comic doesn't 'sell' (Ironheart), then any adaptation is doomed to failure because the book didn't have an audience.

I guess that’s just a different sort of metrics. To me if I enjoy something, that equates to being better than average. Call that B- and up. Not bad also suggests not good; aka, “average”. Call that “C- to C+”. Below that you get to your “bads” (Ds) and “terribles” (Fs). I don’t think I’ve ever in my life assigned a letter grade to a movie, but it helps to organize thoughts, I suppose. I don’t want to imagine the world where critic reviews have any more influence than they already seem to. Especially if we expand “critic” to include random YouTubers.