While Rotten Tomatoes scores can have a big influence over a movie's performance, there's only one thing in common with the Rotten Tomatoes scores of 2021's biggest movies. 2021 was chaotic as the world continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, so some movies saw hybrid theatrical and streaming releases, while others saw exclusive releases either in theaters or on streaming, but all of the top performers both at the box office and on streaming had one shared factor in their Rotten Tomatoes scores.
Rotten Tomatoes scores are seen as a major part of movies marketing, and can even have an impact on box office performance. Rotten Tomatoes claims higher scoring movies tend to perform better and lower scoring movies tend to perform worse, and that may be true as a general rule, but with multiple of 2021's biggest movies earning The Tomorrow War, and Luca.
When it comes to the Tomatometer, it's most of the movies are fresh, with an average score of 70 percent, but surprisingly, six of the seventeen movies are Rotten. When it comes to the Top Critics score, it's a little tighter, as eight of the 17 are rotten, although they're still fresh on the whole with an average of 63 percent. The number that really stands out, though, is the audience scores, with 100 percent of our selected movies earning a Fresh score. It's not only significant that the score is Fresh across the board, but the 84 percent average is also really strong, suggesting the most important factor in performance in theaters or streaming is ultimately the audience score.
Taking a closer look at the Rotten Tomatoes score meant it had the most important component in place, it's just that its performance came from streaming instead, possibly at the cost of box office. Mortal Kombat is a similar story, although with both critical scores being rotten and only a 73 pecent audience score, it arguably has the right corollaries to the movies with strong box office performance.
Studios traditionally covet the critical scores and tout those in marketing if they're good, but based on this data, the audience score means studios shouldn't worry about catering everything for critics. In fact, the lesson that may become more common with time as movies like Ghostbusters: Afterlife opt to highlight the movie's audience score. Surely studios shouldn't lose focus solely on audience score, as the Tomatometer, but it shouldn't come as a shock that the most important metric for audience engagement is to make a movie the audience really likes.
