‘Black Panther’ Rotten Tomatoes Score Sabotage? Anti-Disney Fan Group Takes Aim

Same group took credit for the low Rotten Tomatoes audience score for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” on review aggregator

black panther chadwick boseman
Disney/Marvel

The same Facebook group that took credit for rigging the Rotten Tomatoes audience score of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is now planning to sabotage the score of the upcoming Marvel film “Black Panther.”

In the group, Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys, a moderator created an event titled, “Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.”

“Given the massive success of the audience review rigging on the Rotten Tomatoes site for ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ and due to the sudden rise in those disgruntled with Disney business practices among other factors especially due to the corporate manipulations which created falsified bad press for the DCEU, I feel that it’s time to strike back at all those under Disney and bring down the house of mouse’s actions for paying off the critics that hurt DC Comics on film and for other parties affected by them,” wrote the event creator. “I’ll be making events like this for ‘Infinity War’ and the Netflix shows etc so we can rally together to truly make a difference…If you want to spread spoilers to Marvel fanboys, use this event as a platform to inform us of targets!”

As of this writing, 3,700 people have said they are going, while 1,800 said they are “interested” in the event. Following people’s interest and due to the fact that the “page is once again making headlines,” the moderator also created an event for “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”

A moderator for the group has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.

A spokesperson for Rotten Tomatoes told TheWrap, “We at Rotten Tomatoes are proud to have become a platform for passionate fans to debate and discuss entertainment and we take that responsibility seriously. While we respect our fans’ diverse opinions, we do not condone hate speech. Our team of security, network and social experts continue to closely monitor our platforms  and any users who engage in such activities will be blocked from our site and their comments removed as quickly as possible.”

In December, the group took credit for the low Rotten Tomatoes audience score for “The Last Jedi,” writing, “Thanks to friends of mine who taught me a thing or two about Bot Accounts, I used them to create this audience score through Facebook accounts created that subsequently logged into Rotten Tomatoes who rigged this score and still keep it dropping.”

HuffPost sent a direct message to the page, whose moderator then responded that he was upset with the “Star Wars” producers for introducing more female characters into the franchise, “among other things,” and he also mentioned how “The Last Jedi” seems to disrespect the franchise’s history.

According to HuffPost, the self-identified member of the “alt-right” group said Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron was a “victim of the anti-mansplaining movement,” that Poe and Luke Skywalker are in danger of being “turn[ed] gay” and that men should be reinstated as rulers in society.

At the time, Rotten Tomatoes told TheWrap that the score was authentic.

Comments