Rough reviews come with the territory.
Anyone associated with Hollywood should understand this. Bad reviews still hurt, but they can’t be avoided. Even the best films of the year have some naysayers.
There’s a reason why a 100 percent “fresh” rating on RottenTomatoes.com is so rare.
Another Hollywood truism? Audiences often ignore bad reviews to make films successful. The “Twilight” saga received scathing reviews, but all five films were huge hits.
Sony CEO Tony Vinciquerra has forgotten or ignored this fact.
Vinciquerra addressed the failure of Sony’s new Spider-Man-adjacent film, “Kraven the Hunter,” in a new interview with the LA Times.
The CEO lamented “Kraven’s” disastrous box office debut, insisting that the supervillain’s origin story is “not a bad movie.” He has some defenders on that front. The movie is withering 16% “corrupt” classification. It was balanced out with a “Fresh” rating by 73 percent from the general audience.
Which doesn’t explain why the film made only $18 million in two weeks of release, a 72 percent drop from its debut.
That’s a bad word in business.
The executive also suggests “Madame Web,” the failed Sony show that debuted earlier this year, A similar fate does not deserve. This film earned $43 million stateside along with rough reviews and social media disdain.
“Madame Web did poorly in theaters because the press just crucified it. It wasn’t a bad movie, and it did great on Netflix.
Many movies, good, bad and terrible, do well on streaming services. There’s no danger behind them like this. Viewers can experience the film and bail after 10 minutes, and they can do so from the comfort of their sofas.
It is the opposite of the theatrical experience where audiences deliberately plan to watch a film, leave their homes, perhaps hire babysitters and expect a first-rate film.
The Rotten Tomatoes score for “Web” is 11 percent “rotten”/55 percent audience rating. Art is subjective, but it’s harder to say that “Madame Web” was stolen in theaters.
This is where Vinciquera loses us.
“For some reason, the press decided they didn’t want us to make those two ‘Kraven’ and ‘Madame Web’ movies, and the critics destroyed them.”
What?
Critics are not perfect. They have their flaws and biases. The left-leaning nature of the industry comes to mind, presenting an unbalanced view of filmmaking.
They don’t intend to ruin movies based on subject matter, especially when the subject in question is men and women wearing tights. A few mainstream critics were eager to see a Guardians of the Galaxy adaptation, but the MCU film continued to score strong reviews and spark a popular trilogy.
Vinciquerra is so far off base here, it’s embarrassing. He doubles down on his error by proving that his hypothesis is incorrect in the next sentence.
“They did that with Venom too, but audiences loved Venom and Venom was a huge hit. These aren’t terrible movies. They’ve been destroyed by critics in the press, for a reason.”
So “Venom” succeeded despite bad reviews, but “Kraven the Hunter” and “Madame Web” didn’t?
Vinciquera’s rotation makes no sense. It would be better to compare Sony’s superlative films to the best MCU films. That would be far more productive than his sad and ill-advised approach.