Rotten Tomatoes Is Delaying The 'Justice League' Score To The Day Before Release [Updated]
Update: This post has been updated with additional information from Rotten Tomatoes.
Eager DC Film fans will have to wait a little longer to decide if there's a critical conspiracy against the DC Extended Universe — the reveal of the movie's Rotten Tomatoes score has been delayed.
The Justice League Rotten Tomatoes score has been pushed back to the day before the film's release on November 17, and a day after the review embargo is set to be lifted.
Rotten Tomatoes announced that the Tomatometer rating for Justice League won't be revealed until 12:01 a.m. EST on Thursday, November 16 in conjunction with the aggregator website's new Facebook show See It/Skip It.
After speaking to a Fandango employee, we want to note that Justice League isn't the first wide release whose Tomatometer score was withheld for a reveal on See It/Skip It. The Facebook show debuted earlier this month and highlighted A Bad Moms Christmas, pushing back the score reveal until a day after the review embargo dropped. Forbes reported that the show chose the movies it would spotlight based on whether review embargo times lined up with the show.
While Warner Bros. does have an ownership stake in Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes' parent company, there seems to be no hint of a larger conspiracy. The studio had set the the critic reviews embargo to be lifted on November 15, alarmingly close to the movie's theatrical release. There is often a strong correlation between the length of time between an embargo lift date and the Rotten Tomatoes score of a movie. Generally, the closer the reviews are published to the movie's release date, the lower the score, according to a Mashable report.
The late review embargo lift doesn't bode well for Justice League, which has been mired in behind-the-scenes changes and overhauls after extensive reshoots overseen by Joss Whedon. However, early social media reaction for the movie has been generally positive, so the concerns about the movie may be all for naught.
Hollywood and Rotten Tomatoes have been at each other's throats for the past few months, with the former blaming the review aggregation site for reducing the nuance of movie reviews and affecting box office returns. But there's no evidence that Rotten Tomatoes is wholly responsible for a steadily falling box office numbers. And if fans of Justice League are waiting with bated breath to find out the critical consensus of the superhero movie, they can always simply read the reviews before the Tomatometer score is revealed.
Here's the official synopsis for Justice League:
Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman's selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.
Justice League is directed by Zack Snyder and stars Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Amber Heard, Jeremy Irons, J.K. Simmons, Willem Dafoe, Connie Nielsen, Julian Lewis Jones, and Ciarán Hinds. Justice League will fly into theaters on November 17, 2017.