In these last few weeks, the Rotten Tomatoes page for Captain Marvel has been the site of some heavy backlash, flooding with negative takes before the outlet disabled the comments section and user score for films that haven’t been released yet. Of course, now that the feature is officially in theaters, the trolls are at liberty to offer all the negative reviews they want, though in case you needed any further evidence that the online outrage over the movie has been made to look more prevalent than it actually is, a good proportion of these responses are from obvious bots.
In the small sample viewable below (via MCU Cosmic), you’ll notice many of the comments simply read “I_am_Robbie_the_synthetic_comment,” while others have unusual syntax to suggest that they were automated.
While the Rotten Tomatoes response has been making a lot of waves lately, a similar backlash can be seen on various other corners of the internet. Over on IMDb, for instance, the movie has received a highly disproportionate number of 1/10 (and for that matter, 10/10) ratings from users hoping to influence the film’s score.
You can expect this online drama to continue into the weekend and beyond, but so far, the box office figures earned by and projected for Captain Marvel suggest that much of the filmgoing public isn’t on the same wavelength as the movie’s (partially manufactured) backlash. From Thursday night screenings alone, Carol Danvers’ MCU debut took in an estimated $20-$24 million. Meanwhile, forecasts from earlier this week have set the film’s opening weekend haul at figures as high as $125 million (Variety) or even $150 million (Deadline). The real figure, however, is just a couple of days away from emerging, and as soon as it does, we’ll let you know.
