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There we go. Audience approval rating at 44% as opposed to before the space being occupied by the over 92% "want to see it" hype rating.
I've also been perusing Reddit and other forums and see a lot of pretty big disappointment overall. I saw one stand out saying "I enjoyed it a lot" followed by a 6.5 out of 10.
6.5 out of 10 is a 65%. If I got a 65% on a test in school that was called not having done good on my test. That's passing at a D grade.
That's what i'm not getting is the low rating followed by these "A lot of fun" and "Really enjoyed it" remarks. 6.5 is not a good score to give if you enjoyed it. Man... give it a 7.5 out of 10 or something, that reaches closer to a B rating to match the comment, but even a 7 isn't GREAT...
In the end, the Fresh/Rotten or numerical rating or whathaveyou won't matter. It's literally ONLY the box office that matters. And, I would argue, it's the 2nd week drop-off that will be the most telling. First week, everyone goes in (mostly) blind. There aren't a ton of reviews out, or people just don't care what professional reviewers say.
2nd week, though, they're talking to their friends who saw it, and you see how the audience responds. If word of mouth is good enough, the film will lose less than 50% (figure 30%-ish is a good number) of its opening weekend take, which will prove it has some staying power. If the word of mouth is bad, you'll see a more than 50% loss. Most films, as I understand it,
expect to lose around 50% of their first weekend take by the 2nd weekend, so a really precipitous dropoff is a sign of a poorly received film that has really bad word of mouth. A really bad opening weekend can also hurt, but a weak opening weekend when you're up against stiff competition can be offset by a solid 2nd weekend that shows only a modest dropoff in box office.
So, like, a good run for this film would be ~$60M first week (not great, but not awful), ~$48M week 2 (only about a 20% drop), ~$33M week 3, ~$10M week 4. That'd put you at a total of $151M which would actually exceed the film's budget (not including marketing, but you might have noticed they did relatively little purchased marketing -- I don't know if they paid for the things like the Progressive ad, or if that was more of a licensing agreement where Progressive got to take advantage of the GB IP for its own ad, but either way it probably cut marketing costs). And let's assume that's the domestic take, which doesn't include the overseas take.
That's a successful movie, even if the ratings stay around, oh, 48% positive audience response.
But who other than the media presumed this. This blanket statement that Sony and Feig said all negative comments are misogynists and called everyone sexist - someone please post link. Cuz all I've seen are articles where they state sexists can get lost.
I'm going...I'm going...
I'll do my best to answer honestly here.
I think what it began to seem like was that those defending the film were really only interested in having an argument about the sexism, as if there were no other criticisms out there. Even just ignoring the criticisms of the film (e.g., "Shoulda been a sequel, not a reboot"; "Looks pretty uninspired, given how often it seems to nod to the first film"; "That trailer was confusing and not funny. Is it a reboot or a sequel? I couldn't tell."; "Why can't Leslie Jones be a scientist?"; etc.) basically made it seem like "The only people criticizing this film are sexist trolls." The Washington Post article even basically dismisses the criticisms I've listed and says "But it's clear that most people hate this film because of sexism." Now, granted, the most VISIBLE critics were, indeed, the sexist trolls. They were clearly the squeakiest wheels. But there wasn't a ton else that came out in response to the criticisms, except the counter argument of "fan ownership is nonsense, and y'all need to grow the hell up." That one usually was employed against people like Angry Videogame Nerd's youtube declaration that he wouldn't see the film based on the trailers.
By and large, the film's defenders focused on the sexism angle, and mostly ignored the other criticisms. This could be because the sexists were the most visible (even if not the most numerous), or it could be because they were most put off by those comments, and the rest of the comments they just treated as garden-variety internet griping (which, to be fair, it is) and therefore not worthy of response. But at a certain point, it seemed like the defenders of the film WANTED the argument to be about the sexist response. Personally, I think someone in the marketing department recognized that
this could actually work as positive marketing for the film itself. Go see the film and strike a blow for feminism! Show those trolls what's what! That sort of thing. Even if it only worked a little at the margins, it's still free coverage that puts your film as the poor, beleaguered underdog being beaten upon by these nasty trolls. It's actually pretty smart marketing judo, in my opinion.
Anyway, the implication seemed that the only arguments against the film were the sexist ones, ergo anyone with an argument about why the film didn't look good must be sexist.
At this point, though, it really doesn't matter anymore. The film will rise or fall on its own. The sexism angle will play somewhat in the press, but it's been far more muted in reviews than I would have expected. So, my guess is that the moviegoing public will remain largely ignorant of it, and it won't shape their opinions a ton.
Ultimately, my guess is that the film will end up being regarded as...you know....just another late 2010s comedy. Nothing special. Nothing terrible. Part of the remake-a-palooza that Hollywood loves, but which ultimately is forgotten in time, not because it was bad but because it just....wasn't anything special. It'll get a sequel, I expect, maybe two, and then the whole thing will fade away until yet another round of reboots comes along.
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