Rotten Tomatoes disables comments as 'Captain Marvel' battles trolls before release
Movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes on Tuesday said it has disabled user comments and other feedback on unreleased movies after online trolls bombarded “Captain Marvel” with negative commentary prior to its March 8 release.
Aside from disabling comments, the website said it would no longer display prerelease “Want to See” scores for films, noting that the metric is often confused with its post-release “Audience Score” percentage. The decision came after “Captain Marvel,” which stars actress Brie Larson, was bombarded with negative comments and “not interested” ratings this month before it was even screened for preview audiences.
“We are disabling the comment function prior to a movie’s release date,” Rotten Tomatoes said in a blog post. “Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership. We have decided that turning off this feature for now is the best course of action.”
Rotten Tomatoes said users will be able to leave comments and ratings as normal once films have been released.
While the website did not explicitly mention “Captain Marvel” in announcing its decision, the film is one of several that has dealt with prerelease backlash. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and Marvel’s “Black Panther” dealt with similar criticism ahead of their respective releases.
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“Captain Marvel” is expected to earn more than $100 million at the North American box office during its debut weekend, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
