The ‘Verified Hot’ Label, Explained

Move over, Oscars Cheer Moment, because the internet just came up with a new way to measure how much folks love them some big-budget blockbusters — and we have lots of questions.

Any movie fan who’s spent more than five minutes online knows that Rotten Tomatoes, the imperfect system that it is, tends to be treated as the be-all and end-all for criticism. For studios, getting that enviable “Fresh” rating alongside a high score means another tool in their marketing toolbox to tout in trailers and TV spots. (Although, on occasion, this has been known to backfire hilariously.) For moviegoers who can’t reasonably afford to go to the theaters every single weekend, an aggregator website to check on the critical and audience consensus certainly comes in handy when deciding which titles are worth their time and money. And to lift the curtains a tiny bit, us critics and journalists depend on the site as a source of traffic to our reviews (though that’s not nearly as substantial a bump as you might think) and as additional validation that we are, in fact, qualified to know what we’re talking about.

Such influence also makes it necessary for us to weigh in whenever Rotten Tomatoes decides to go and do silly-sounding things, like with today’s news. In a fresh blog post on the official site, it’s been announced that another label has been added to their repertoire: a “Verified Hot” badge aimed towards the most popular and well-received movies, described as “a brand new elevated designation and badge honoring theatrical films with the highest-rated Verified Audience Scores on the Popcornmeter.” What exactly does this mean for the average user? Let’s dig into it.

I’m not sure anyone really needed yet another confusing label added onto a rather busy-looking site, but it’s happening anyway! Rotten Tomatoes seems pretty jazzed about this new update, with Senior VP Amanda Norvell from Fandango (which, along with Rotten Tomatoes, is owned by Comcast) releasing a statement to usher in the big change: “With the addition of Verified Hot, we are excited to celebrate and shine a spotlight on the theatrical films that fans have unanimously embraced and have taken the time to share their incredible moviegoing experience with other fans.”

According to the popular site, this new label will act as a sort of companion to its preexisting Verified Audience Reviews function. Moving forward, movies will qualify as “Verified Hot” if they meet the following eligibility rules:

• Have a Verified Audience Score of 90% or higher.
• Have a minimum of 500+ Verified Ratings for films in wide release.
• Have a minimum of 250+ Verified Ratings for films in limited release.
• Repertory titles (such as classic rereleases) are also eligible for the designation.

That first point is an important one, since it will only consider input from verified ticket purchases from sister company Fandango — in other words, this should theoretically act as another safeguard against the spate of review-bombing efforts instigated predominantly by bigoted weirdos with way too much time on their hands (as we saw most recently with the now-canceled series “The Acolyte”). In practice, this change further shifts the spotlight away from critical reactions and more towards audience scores. So, in addition to the typical “Fresh”https://www.slashfilm.com/”Rotten” icons, expect to see “Verified Hot” (and its unflattering counterpart, “Stale”) begin to pop up on several titles.

Won’t someone think of the mega-budget blockbusters?! If it seems like every major institution have been catering more and more towards the biggest spectacles of the year, from the Academy Awards to major film festivals (“Joker: Folie à Deux” is slated to have its world premiere at Venice later this year), that’s because they are. We can now add Rotten Tomatoes to that ever-expanding list as the aggregator looks to change up how it quantifies certain titles that meet new standards to be considered “Verified Hot.” From now on, users can expect to see this fancy badge added next to certain titles. But which ones, you ask?

In an additional blog post, Rotten Tomatoes included a list of well over 200 movies that will now have the “Hot” badge added to their main page. These include obvious crowd-pleasers and box-office juggernauts like both “Dune” movies, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” and more (alongside some curious inclusions, such as, uh, “Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist”). But it’s also glaring that this list is jam-packed full of superhero movies, the vast majority of which are installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s fair to question whether a new metric practically designed to give these popular movies yet another pathway to recognizability is truly necessary — especially when they already make up so much of our online discourse and consistently rake in hundreds of millions at the box office. (Cue that famous “Mad Men” line.)

Will movie trailers start bragging about being certified “Verified Hot” alongside glowing quotes pulled from critic reviews? Will audiences start using this label to help them decide which movies to spend money on? I’m curious — and a little skeptical — about where this is all going.