Do Reviews Actually Matter?
When it comes to reviewing art, do reviews actually effect their success?
As long as art has been around there have always been people willing to critique it. There has always been people who study and examine pieces of art closely; attempting to articulate what works and what doesn't work about a given piece of art. Many people who create fear critical analysis because they think negative reviews have the potential of ruining any chance at future projects, but is that actually true? Is their a one-to-one connection between critical acclaim and success?
One only needs to look at the various writers, directors, and producers who succeed in Hollywood despite never earning much critical acclaim. One of the best examples is Michael Bay. Michael Bay makes films that almost exclusively exist to be critically panned. The Transformers movies are incomprehensible messes from their plots to their characters, and yet, the films have grossed almost 5 billion dollars worldwide. This flies in the face of the idea that bad reviews can hurt your chances at success.
Another great example is the career of M. Night Shyamalan. Shyamalan started his career off strong with such critical and financial hits as "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable". However, that career started to nose dive fast and he eventually started making really bad films such as "The Last Airbender" and "After Earth". Despite most of his films bombing critically (and in many cases financially) he still ends up finding his way back behind a camera. After every critical failure, he keeps getting back up and still gets work. It seems like Shyamalan keeps defying fate time and time again.
Despite many examples like these some films that are received poorly by critics still bomb. The reviews could have a hand in the financial failings of a film, however, most films that this happens to are films that didn't look all that great to begin with. A film like "Cats" was probably always going to bomb because the trailers really didn't make it look all that good. However, critical success is no guarantee of audience/financial success.
A film like "Blade Runner 2049" was a financial bomb despite being a critically acclaimed sequel to a critically acclaimed film. However, no body stopped to ask if the Blade Runner series was beloved or popular to movie audiences the same way it was to devoted film enthusiasts and critics. Even the original "Blade Runner" was a financial bomb upon it's release in the early 80s. One of my favorite films "The Iron Giant" was a pretty big bomb at the box office despite critical praise. Many attribute this to the lack of marketing for the movie or the fact that the film was a non-Disney animated film which, at the time, gave it little chance at success.
I brought up all of these example to say, once again, are reviews tied to success and the answer I've come to is mostly no. Reviews can sway some audiences away or toward a film, but not enough to cause drastic damage. The reason behind this is the fact that the audiences' taste and critics' tastes don't always match. In the film world, it can be a real gamble as to whether your art succeeds or fails. Their's no easy answer to what makes a successful film, but you won't know if you don't try for yourself.
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