Rotten Tomatoes Suspends Comments on The Dark Knight Rises

This is a retelling, in our own words, of the Associated Press report (July 2012).

The review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes suspended user comments on reviews of The Dark Knight Rises after fans reacted to negative reviews with a flood of profane and threatening remarks directed at the critics who wrote them.

Matt Atchity, the site's editor-in-chief, said it was the first time Rotten Tomatoes had ever suspended user comments, and that postings on the film's reviews would likely be restored by the end of the week. The final film in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy was opening that Friday.

Atchity said policing the comments had simply overwhelmed his staff: an outpouring of hate aimed at reviewers of a movie most of the commenters had not yet seen. The site was considering longer-term fixes, including moving to a Facebook-based commenting system to cut down on anonymous posts. Other aggregators, he noted, either barred user comments entirely or did not allow comments before a film opened.

The irony was that the film was doing fine with critics overall — it held a glowing 84 percent "fresh" rating on the site. The fury was directed at the handful of dissenters: Marshall Fine, who had called the film "nonsensical"; Christy Lemire of the Associated Press, who had deemed it a "letdown"; and Nick Pinkerton of the Village Voice, among others. Lou Ferrara, the AP managing editor overseeing entertainment, said it was unfortunate when the conversation turned ugly.

Atchity said he was already worried about a repeat when Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey arrived later that year — and that the site might do away with comments entirely, or activate them only after a movie opened.

Rotten Tomatoes was owned at the time by the social movie site Flixster, a Warner Bros. company — the studio behind the Batman film itself, an ownership detail the controversy quietly underscored.

Based on Associated Press reporting (July 2012).