Short answers, pulled from the story.
Rotten Tomatoes launched on the 12th of August 1998, created as a spare-time project by Senh Duong, an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. Duong was inspired by his interest in Jackie Chan's films and coded the site in two weeks. He later partnered with Berkeley classmates Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang, and the three relaunched it as a full-time venture on the 1st of April 2000.
The Tomatometer measures the percentage of certified critics who marked a review as "fresh" rather than averaging numeric scores. Films with 60 percent or more positive reviews are designated fresh; those below 60 percent are rotten. The "Certified Fresh" seal requires a score of 75 percent or higher, at least 80 critic reviews (40 for limited releases), and at least 5 reviews from Top Critics.
Rotten Tomatoes has been owned by Fandango Media since February 2016, when it and its parent site Flixster were sold by Warner Bros. Fandango was then part of Comcast. Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango.
The Popcornmeter, launched under that name on the 21st of August 2024, measures the percentage of audience members who rated a film positively on a five-star scale. Unlike the Tomatometer, which tracks certified critics, the Popcornmeter reflects registered users. Since the 24th of May 2019, only verified ticket purchasers through Fandango have their ratings counted toward the displayed audience score.
In 2017, several films including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Baywatch, and The Mummy significantly underperformed their projected openings while carrying Rotten Tomatoes scores of 30 percent, 19 percent, and 16 percent respectively. A 2015 study commissioned by 20th Century Fox warned that the site combined with social media was becoming a serious complication for the film business. However, academic researchers have so far not found evidence that Rotten Tomatoes ratings actually affect box office performance.
Critics include Armond White, chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle, who in January 2010 described the site as offering "consensus as a substitute for assessment." Director Brett Ratner argued that reducing hundreds of reviews to a single score disrespects individual critical thought. Martin Scorsese wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that Rotten Tomatoes promotes the idea that films must be "instantly liked" to be considered successful.