I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that a) going out to the movies has gotten ridiculously expensive and b) most mainstream movies aren’t terrific. Given these two truths, RottenTomatoes.com is a default stop most Fridays; one critic’s review may not be a good measure of my future satisfaction with a movie, but when multiple reviews are averaged they become a powerful tool.

Rotten tomatoes has been steadily growing for the past 5 years. The chart below shows unique visitors per month, from August 2002 to August 2007. Over that time period the site has grown from just over 1 million visitors to nearly 2.5, peaking in December at over 3 million. Interestingly, while unique visitors has fallen since the December peak, Visitors spend about 25% more time on the site, so monthly attention remains relatively consistent.


rottentomatoes.com traffic: august 2002 - august 2007

The home page of Rottentomatoes.com answers the most immediate question visitors have;“Is the movie I’m about to see not a dive?”. But at around $10 a seat, there are reasons to dig deeper, so what movies were RottenTomatoes.com visitors researching the most? The chart below shows the top 20 movies on RottenTomatoes ranked by the amount of total time spent on each movie, from January 2007 to August 2007, along with each movie’s total budget, opening weekend revenue, and “TomatoMeter” score.


rottentomatoes.com most visited movies

  • Its (sort of) all about the ad spend: It appears that the primary influence on consumer interest all comes back to money. Generally, movies with the largest budgets received the most traffic.
  • …then our ticket lines will wait in the shade: An internet rock star, 300 was the only site with a sub-$100 million budget to make it into the top five. It’s enormous online presence also helped drived $72 million in opening weekend sales.
  • Lipstick on a pig: Bad movies with big budgets (Eragon, Fantastic 4, Ghostrider) tend to attract far less interest on the site than their more positively reviewed peers, but it doesn’t seem to impact opening weekend sales.
  • A different kind of action movie: Amazingly, even RottenTomatoes isn’t immune to the adult industry’s massive web presence. WWE Divas Undressed captured more attention on the site than Live Free or Die Hard.

…but I’d still bet on Mclane any day.


Analyze more domains: + +

Done reading? subscribe: To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe here, or to receive them via email enter your email address in the box in the right column.

Link to This Post:     


Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.
  1. Scott

    To me, it seems you need to compare it to the marketing budget.

    I am sure the movies budget follows very closely the total budget.

    People want to know more about the most marketed movies.

    Pans Labyrinth’s had no budget at all, but it was a top movie. Why is that? Same with Borat? How do you explain that?

  2. Seo Toolbar

    Success is promoted by Money but sometimes Money can’t bring success !

    We as e-marketers follow the success (high ranked websites…) to bring money :-)

  3. Claude Gelinas

    The “TomatoMeter” is usually right.

    For instance, Eragon was a “been there, seen that” movie from start to finish and the reviewers reflected that in the movie’s less than enviable score.

    If democracy worked like this movie site, we wouldn’t be sitting pretty (waiting to vote -and- voice out our opinion) for four, long “political” years ; )

  4. Araba Resmi

    thanks..

  5. iso 9001

    good job

  6. ELD DANISMANLIK

    nice sharing, thanks

  7. bassan

    hi, msj 123 wonderful blog 123 share

  8. JanyKov

    many thanks

  9. bassan loadcell

    hi, my name is basan.com.tr BASSAN loadcell.your wonderful blog, 168 blog. tnx. Msj number . 168

  10. merdiven

    Hi, We have been manufacturing stair. 304 merdivenci 304


Have something to say? Leave a Comment

Get the comments RSS feed, instant notification of new comments

Latest Blog Posts:


Nov 6: Dicing into Facebook Ads
Nov 5: “Game Over” for Wii?
Nov 4: Want a Tip about Podcasting? Digital 180 Speaks with Tippingpoint Labs’ Chief Strategy Officer
Nov 3: More Castrol Traffic No Fantasy
Nov 2: Digital 180 Speaks with Espresso’s Managing Director Marta Kagan
Oct 30: Apple Having a Little Fun
Oct 29: HTC Poised to Grow as Smartphone Market Expands
Oct 28: Getting The Most Out Of Compete PRO : Keyword Destination Reports
Oct 27: Walmart and Amazon declare war : Online Retailers Fight for Book Sales
Oct 26: Clicking Their Way to Home Improvement: How Consumers are using the web in home improvement projects
Oct 23: Ads That Reject The Click
Oct 22: September Search Share: The Bing train keeps rolling but not at Google’s expense
Oct 21: The Economy Helps Boost the Prepaid Market
Oct 20: Browsers for Food
Oct 19: September search term biggest movers are here!
Oct 16: Can Microsoft’s Zune HD challenge the iPod?
Oct 15: The Dove Soap Bubble
Oct 14: Sept Data is Live: 2009 is BIG for Back to School
Oct 12: Sweetness! Compete PRO just got that much better!
Oct 9: Toyota Spending Big to Get Off the Sidelines