IFH 802: Studios, Scores & Secrets: The Untold Story of Rotten Tomatoes with Patrick Lee
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You are listening to the IFH Podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork.com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, episode number 8. No 2. Cinema should make you forget you're sitting in a theater. Roman Polanski.

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If you want to order it, just head over to www.FilmBizBook.com. That's FilmBizBook.com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Dave Bullis. On this week's episode, I'm going to talk to the co-founder of Rotten Tomatoes. Very polarizing website. We talk about that. It's the internet's leading film critic source, and they're trying to get into film news and

But Rotten Tomatoes, it's, you know, depending on who you ask, some people think it's great, some people think it's just terrible. And the reason being, Patrick and I are going to talk about all that in this episode about, you know, about bias, if there is some, you know, what he's handled about studios calling in and complaining about negative reviews and all that good stuff. With guest, Patrick Lee. Before Rotten Tomatoes, my co-founders and I, we had a design firm.

called Design Reactor. And originally we were doing design work for anybody and doing any kind of design work, including, you know, print, 3D design and web design. And eventually we decided to focus it just around web design for the entertainment industry. So we managed to kind of get a foothold into our foot in the door into Disney Channel and eventually grew that relationship with them to the point where we were doing

majority of their web pages and games. We also started working with a lot of other entertainment companies, including ABC, Warner Brothers, Artisan Entertainment, MTV, BH1. We made the online flash game for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. And so from there, we kind of ended up transitioning to Rotten Tomatoes. Our creative director at the time, Sen Duong,

Came up with the idea for Rotten Tomatoes, so he created it. And this is while he was still at Design Reactor. And he ended up doing this on the side. Came up with the idea for Rotten Tomatoes. Basically, you know, if you back then you would open up a newspaper, you see a full page ad for a movie. It would look like a movie poster and have a bunch of quotes on it. Except all the quotes would always be good. And his idea was just like, what if I put all the quotes good and bad together?

on one page in a similar format and kind of show you the percentage of good versus out of the total. And that's how he came up with the idea for Rotten Tomatoes. So he ran that for about a year on the side. And eventually we were like, you know what? Maybe this should be the business. So we transitioned out of our design firm, raised some money for Rotten Tomatoes, and then passed our design firm off to another group.

So, you know, I like that idea, too. You know, you see everything on each side of the coin. And, you know, that's that's just interesting with how everything has become nowadays, you know, because, I mean, I'm sure you've seen movies nowadays where you've seen the trailers and stuff like that, where they've said, like, Rotten Tomatoes, it's certified fresh. You know, you've seen that, right, Patrick?

Yeah, yeah. So it's like a friend of mine and I were talking the other day and he goes, why does everyone mention Rotten Tomatoes in ads now? And I go, they have to. That's like the barometer now. You know what I mean? It's like if it's certified fresh, it's like that's a stamp of approval. Yeah, yeah. So originally we didn't have that. I mean, it used to be just a movie was fresh if it was 60% or above. And the reason why Sen decided on 60% was he felt like 50%.

was like half-half. And he's like, oh, that doesn't seem positive enough. So he decided three out of every five, so 60%. And then we didn't come up with Certified Fresh until years later, probably about three or four years in. And it was actually our salesperson, Evan Coet, who I think really came up with the idea when he was talking to studios. And basically we found that when a studio bought advertising with us,

if the movie ended up, you know, fresh, they would have a high chance of buying more. Obviously, if it ended up rotten, it was kind of a nightmare and they would be very unhappy. But we couldn't control that. And so one thing that Evan kind of came up with was he's like, you know, maybe we should create something kind of above just fresh. And so, you know, and this is what I think it was when we were talking with Fox Searchlight and they were kind of giving us similar feedback.

And that's when we're like, yeah, that might make sense. You know, if the movie is really good, if we should kind of separate that out. And so in that case, it's movies that are 75 percent or above. So three out of every four. And then, yeah, nowadays, yeah, I see it all over the place. You know, it'll be on DVD cases and in trailers for movies. And it's it's always cool when I see that.

So when you mentioned all the studios, if they if they if the movie ended up being certified fresh or even fresh,

they would be more, I guess, dispositioned, if you will, to buy more ads. But if the movie didn't end up being rotten, listed as rotten, they wouldn't buy more ads. Was there ever a point in a time where, I mean, you said they were very unhappy. Was there ever a time where it got really bad, where maybe they said, hey, Patrick, we just feel this movie is being unjustly skewed? Yeah, so...

Studios and maybe other people in the entertainment industry, they have a love-hate relationship with Rotten Tomatoes, depending on what the score is. If it's fresh, they'll put it everywhere. They'll do marketing around that, which creates more awareness for Rotten Tomatoes. But when it's rotten, they'll be really unhappy. We've had studios, producers, etc., marketing people threatening to pull...

ad campaigns or threatening to never advertise with us again. And especially when a movie is kind of like close to being fresh. So in the 50s or high 40s, they'll try really, really hard to improve the score. And, you know, obviously we can't change anything. We don't write the reviews, but they'll go through and they'll

try and find reviews that we didn't include that are fresh or positive. And almost always, like those are not from professional critics. There'll be some, you know, random magazine or radio station or something. We're like, well, that doesn't count. That's not one of our critics. So we can't add that. But then they'll also go through, read all the rotten reviews and come back and say like, this one's fresh and this one's fresh. You rated it wrong. And in those cases, you know, we'll take a second look.

And in some cases it is wrong. We actually created tools for the critics to submit themselves. And it's even possible where we're like, it does look like it should be fresh and we'll go back and ping the critic and then they'll, you know, say, oh yeah, like it's fresh or rotten or whatever. And so studios will try really, really hard to change the score, especially if it's something like, you know, it's 59% and ends up being, you know, rotten. But if it was 60% to be fresh, that's like,

they'll fight very, very hard at that point. And I imagine, I mean, it's been a long time since we ran it. Like we sold it in 2004. It's been 14 years ago. But I, from what I've heard, it's, this still happens now. And it's, I imagine it will always happen.

Yeah. And also, yeah, I was a question I was going to have for you, too, was, you know, what what is considered a professional critic? Because you mentioned, you know, you have different radio stations or your hell, even even me, you know, and they're probably like, you know, we don't care what Dave has to say about about a movie. You know what I mean? And it's just that that's why I always wondered, you know, because, you

you know, with, with, with media, the way it is nowadays, you know, anybody can start a podcast or a Twitter, a Twitter account or a YouTube channel, you know, and that's where you have to ask yourself, you know, where do you draw the line between a professional critic and a non-professional critic? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Right. I mean, when we started their word, Oh, podcasts, if I remember correctly, um,

We had rules. I don't, I haven't looked recently, so I have no idea if they're the same, but back then it'd be like, um, ideally you would have to have a certain amount of reach and it could be online or magazine or newspaper or television or whatever. Uh, as well as a certain number of reviews that you would do every year. Cause it wouldn't be, you know, an obvious sign is if you did like one review a year, then you're, you're pretty much not a professional critic. It doesn't matter what your reach is. Um,

We also would include things like, oh, if you are part of a professional critics society, so like the L.A. Film Critics Society or New York or, you know, things like that. So we had different criteria of what we considered a professional critic. And the thing is, anyone can still rate. So it's just that are you in a pool of a couple hundred people or you're in a pool of millions of people?

Yeah. And that's a good, that's a good point, you know, because, you know, reach, I guess is technically subjective because I, you know, I see people who have Twitter followers who are, who have maybe six figures of Twitter followers, but their actual reach, their actual engagement is so low. And you kind of wonder where, how that, you know, did they buy the followers? Did they take over someone else's account? And then this is just kind of stagnant. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely an issue. And,

I haven't looked, but I don't know if they actually have professional critics that are primarily through Twitter or podcasts. I think most of the critics usually have some site or something where their actual full review is printed or online. So that way users can click over and read it.

Yeah, like, you know, like Richard Roper and like Roger Ebert, you know, well, Roger Ebert, obviously he's deceased, but he still has the website up where, you know, he has a critic circle and stuff. Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, as we talked about, you know, the unfair skew and stuff like that, I wanted to ask your reaction. You know, a couple I think when was it when Batman versus Superman came out? I know there was some kind of backlash from fans. I don't know if you if you ever heard about this or saw this, but basically they were saying that the critics were always being unfair to DC movies. It was it was Batman versus Superman and then it was Suicide Squad.

you know, when stuff like that happens and you start to see this like online reaction, whether it be from like fans or something, you know, generally speaking, did there's rotten tomatoes, like ever pay attention to stuff like that? Do they ever say like, Oh, maybe, you know, maybe there is a skew or at all. You know what I mean? I mean, this all happened again after we've sold it, but I believe there was a point in time when, I mean, we had controversy even way back when we were running it, but not as much because,

user reviews weren't, we introduced that, but it wasn't as big a part of the site as it is now. I remember, I think it was Dark Knight was very, very high, highly rated. And there's like a few critics that gave rotten ratings. And I think they were getting like death threats or something to a point where, yeah, it was like a big problem for them. And there are even cases where there are critics who will, as far as we know, purposely give

a rating opposite of everyone else just to essentially affect the Tomatometer score. I think that happened recently with Lady Bird. And it was like a perfect 100%. And one critic gave it a run, even though his review should have been considered a fresh. And I think it was specifically because he was like, this is not a 100% movie, in his opinion. As far as DC, from what I had read, like,

use users were actually like rotten tomatoes hates dc movies which was funny because at the time rotten tomatoes was owned by warner brothers which owns dc you know like if it was going to have any favoritism it would actually you would imagine it would be for uh dc and even now i think under it's owned by fandango but i think that's even i think warner brothers still owns a decent chunk of it um

And yeah, for DC movies, you know, outside of Wonder Woman recently, critics tend to be harder on them. And there's a pretty big difference from the critic score and the user score. And in that case, you kind of have to, you know, when you're like deciding about whether or not you should see the movie, you should think about do you tend to...

agree more with the critics or the general moviegoer. When they both agree, like it's both saying fresh or both saying run, it's very, very accurate. When they disagree, and you get that when it's like an arthouse movie, you can have critics giving a very high score and users giving a much lower score and vice versa. You know, when it's a comedy or, you know, like a DC movie, critics give a low score and users can give a much, much higher score.

The other thing that you have to consider is two things. One, critics have to see everything. That's why they're professional critics. And so that's why that score, I think, you know, critics do have a bias towards more arthouse, indie, drama, you know, that kind of stuff than an average moviegoer. But they see everything. So it's easier to compare their scores across. When it's users, well, number one, a user doesn't even have to see the movie to rate it.

And this is true of any site that has user ratings. I mean, I guess Amazon has verified purchases, but like you go on INDP, you go on Rotten Tomatoes, you go on any of those sites, you'll see the user rating is not really necessarily reliable, even like Yelp. You can totally just go on there, put a rating in for something that you've never been to. And even assuming that that's only a small percentage of the total number of user ratings,

These users are willingly going and paying their own money to see that movie. So they're more predisposed to want to like it. And so when the user rating is actually rotten, then it's pretty safe to say that that movie is quite rotten. But when it's the other way around with user critics are giving it rotten and the user is giving it fresh, then you kind of have to be like, am I the kind of user that would like this kind of movie?

So I guess that's all the way ways to kind of look at the scores.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. And, you know, and again, with Wonder Woman being the one DC movie that sort of has been judged a little more, you know, has been received a little more better by the critics and the public. I think I'm fairly certain that Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, I'm fairly certain the critics hated both of those and they fared a little bit better with the audiences. I think they definitely did better. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

And I actually got the idea to start another podcast where basically I just, you know, in the movie business, when you, when you have a bad script or, you know, it's called you, this is a total rewrite. Like I'd give it, you know, if, if I came in your office, Patrick, and you were the studio head and you were like, look, look, Bullis, this is terrible. This is a total rewrite page one rewrite. I would, uh, that was the idea for the podcast is I would actually take,

a movie that is sort of not done so well and how would I have written it so that's actually in the next phase of something I'm going to launch probably sooner than later but I've done some test versions of it just to see how people played out which is also by the way just something cool you can do with the media we have nowadays you can do like test versions of stuff you know so it was actually pretty cool but I just wanted to mention that as like a side note oh that sounds cool yeah for sure

So, but I'm sorry that I interrupted you. What were you going to say? Oh, no, I was saying, yeah, I'm pretty sure both those cases, the user scores were a lot higher. And now from what I've been seeing, there's actually almost like an anti-Marvel, anti-Disney kind of contingent that are, I believe, trying to push the user scores down for like Marvel movies.

Yeah, it's kind of like another kind of fandom, kind of like gang war type thing. You know, so... And just going back to the film critics, I want to mention this too. You know, we talked about they see everything because they have to just by the nature. But also...

They have to dissect a movie. So I always say this. You can dissect a movie with a surgeon's scalpel or a machete. When you dissect it with a surgeon's scalpel, you have to discuss not only the performances but the writing, the lighting, the direction, everything. And that's where you go through and you say, hey, what is all this stuff? What is the good, the bad, the ugly? With a machete, you're just kind of saying, look, I didn't like it and that's that. Mm-hmm.

So I think that's why critics, I think the critics score, like we were just saying, that's, you know, again, why, why it would weigh a little bit more than say, you know, it just, right. Having some person with a random podcast, you know what I mean? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Right, right, right. I think the, um, the other thing that a lot of times people get like misunderstand about Rotten Tomatoes is at least when we were running it, the way we looked at it was the percentage of,

score, the tomato meter, is basically the percent chance that you'll like seeing a movie. Because what it is, is it's like what percent critics of the critics recommend seeing it. So if it's 80%, you could be that 80% that's going to like it, or you could be the 20% that's not going to like it. So you'll see people who

always coming up to me and they're like, yeah, this movie was like 10%, but I still liked it. I'm like, yeah, you're the 10% that would like it or vice versa. Hey, this movie was 90%, but I didn't like it. I'm like, yeah, you're the 10% that wouldn't like it. And for the most part, I feel like that makes a lot more sense because we also show things like the average rating and stuff. So a movie could be 100%, but its average rating

isn't necessarily a 10 out of 10 it's it could be you know 7 out of 10 where everyone's like yeah it's not bad i mean it's not like the greatest movie ever but everyone agrees that it's worth seeing you know um like typically pixar movies will fall under that i mean i think they actually their average rating is also pretty high but they're the kind of movies that are close to universally like yeah you should probably go see it especially the early ones like a toy story i think it was 100 or i think it is still 100 um

And it's the kind of movie that back then everyone was like, yeah, this is worth checking out. I imagine something like Matrix. I haven't looked at the score in a long time, but it's probably when it came out, it's the kind of movie that's like, yeah, you should probably go check it out. So I think that's one thing that people look at the Tomatometer and they just assume it means, you know, kind of like average rating and they're actually kind of different.

You know, I was actually talking about friends, sorry, talking with friends about some of the highest rated movies of Rotten Tomatoes. The Toy Story 2 held the record for like the perfect score until Lady Bird. And then until that one critic we actually just mentioned. And now I think Black Panther has the record because I think it's 100 percent now still. I think is that Paddington 2 or whatever?

get a negative review because i i was reading some articles not too long ago where it was actually the new record holder really i actually didn't hear that let me let me let me look it up see if it's still um a hundred percent but yeah no it was which is weird because i i never saw the number one i don't even remember hearing anything about number one um but yeah now i'm actually curious to go see it both of them because i'm like how's that yeah it's still 100 percent

Paddington 2? Yeah. Oh, wow. And the audience score is 89%. Let me see what Paddington 1 is. 98 and 80. I guess they're both pretty high. Yeah, at least for me, when I saw the trailer, it's not exactly my type of movie, although I do animated stuff. I just kind of, in my brain, assumed it was like a Garfield or something. So Patrick, now that you mention it, what are your type of movies? What type of movies do you like watching? Who are some of your favorite directors?

So my two co-founders, Stephen and Sen, Stephen was our CTO, Sen was the creator, and he handled the product. They were big movie buffs. Stephen watches, he'll watch like arthouse stuff, like the Oscars type, you know, best pictures, he'll watch all of them. Sen, I think, was a little bit more into like sci-fi animation, kung fu, that kind of stuff. And I would say I'd fall more on that towards Sen, but even...

more casual. So I'm like the summer blockbuster guy. I'll watch comic book stuff, superhero stuff, uh, sci-fi fantasy, um, comedies, action adventure. Like that tends to be my, my thing. Like to be honest, um, before they went to 10 movies a year on best picture when it was five, most likely I would have seen zero out of five. And when they went to 10, I might've seen like two, which is usually the ones that, uh,

are more like the sci-fi fantasy kind of ones that get thrown in there. Although, I mean, when I do watch movies that are like highly rated that are not in my typical kind of movies that I would go to. Yeah, generally I enjoy it. I just don't, for me at least, I just don't seek it out. I tend to watch the movies that, because I like to watch movies in theaters and I want to watch the movies that go well in theaters. So, you know, like things like Star Wars or Avengers or, you know, something like that. Yeah, it's, I know exactly what you mean. And, and,

you know, what has happened to me is, uh, uh, Patrick is I've gotten kind of so burned out with the superhero movies and the star Wars and everything else that, you know, I, I honestly am, am, am becoming like, uh, uh, you know, I'm 30 years old and I'm becoming like 90, I'm 30 going on 90 where I just want to sit home and watch an art house movie now. And I'm just like, good. I like, I would just rather watch this or, or, or, you know, some, some French foreign film, uh,

rather than seeing all these new blockbusters. You know what I mean? It's just, I'm just at that point, man. Yeah, I mean, I actually watch a lot of movies. I would say I watch probably like three, two or three movies a month in theaters. Maybe, you know, kind of goes up and down depending on what's out there. But yeah, like my co-founders, Steven and Sen, they're much more, they're much bigger movie buffs. I was more like just doing company movies

with friends doing something that I felt was interesting. So I do like entertainment. I do like movies, but they're much more like they can talk deeply about directors and producers and all that stuff. And I'm like the surface level, like more like average moviegoer. But I think in a way it kind of worked for our company because I could kind of come at it from a different point of view on things. When we're talking about features and other things, I come at it much more like, hey, I'm a more like a regular user.

Yeah, and that's good too because, as we talked about, the critic versus the regular audience. And that, I think, works out well just the same because most people going to movies –

They, you know, they, they have, they have their favorite parts of movies. They remember certain scenes, but I mean, when you, you know, have you ever watched a movie with people who are in the film business? You know what I mean? They start to use, they start to talk about all these other sorts of things. And that's why I tend to have different groups of friends. Like if I'm, if I have friends in the film business, I'll go see a movie with them. And it's a whole different experience. And it's a whole different conversation before and after than if I go with my regular friends who have other jobs.

Yeah, no, totally. It's super different when you watch with them. And for me, a lot of times I'm just like, do I end up believing I'm in the movie? And whether it's acting or story and plot. And for me, usually at the end, things like plot holes and stuff drive me kind of crazy. But yeah, when you're with movie business people...

Depending on who you're with, they'll be looking at the cinematography or the acting and all that kind of stuff. And generally, like as long as the acting is passable, it doesn't bother me too much. But every once in a while you will see people who are like, oh, man, they shouldn't be in movies or maybe they're just, you know, very good looking or something. Yeah, it's not everything can be like the room, you know. Have you seen The Room?

No, but I, yeah, I know. Okay, good. What you're talking about. Yeah. I'm actually kind of curious to see both movies and, you know, see how close it was and, or, you know, I, and there was a book about it and everything too. Yeah. Disaster artist. Yeah. In my opinion, Patrick, I, I would see in the order, like watch the room first and then watch the disaster artists. And then you'll, I think you'll appreciate it a little more. Hmm.

Yeah, that probably makes sense. So you could see all the fun parts of it. So, you know, Patrick, you ended up selling Rotten Tomatoes and you sort of started to move on to different projects. So what are you working on now? So, yeah, after we sold, I went to Asia for like nine years doing two different startups. And then I came back and one of my friends that I did my first company with before Rotten Tomatoes, before Design Reactor, this guy, Lyle Fong.

He also did startups. He did a company called Lithium Technologies that did quite well. And we were just talking about maybe doing something together and decided to make a game. So we're making... Hobo Labs makes mobile games. We just launched our game a week ago called Storm the Gates. And it's like...

It's like a multiplayer, like a game you play with other people against other people. So it's a player versus player kind of game that you play on your phone. And it's a role playing game. You know, you have a little character and you can get spells and get items and gear and stuff like that. And the reason why I'm doing it is it's actually a super tough industry. It's very hit space. So the game comes out, it could be a total bomb or it could be a huge hit. It's not always easy to tell what it's going to be.

Or it can just be very kind of average. And it's just because my co-founder and I have loved playing games since we were little. Like I'm actually a bigger gamer than I am like, well, no, I guess I do like games. I like movies and I like music. But as far as being hardcore, I'm probably more hardcore as a gamer than on the movies. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

You mentioned you went to Asia for nine years. Was it primarily in China?

I went to China for three years, Hong Kong for six. So I'm actually Chinese, but I was born in LA, grew up in the States. So I was like, yeah, you know, it'd be interesting to try and see what it's like outside of the US. And I originally planned on going for, you know, like two or three years. And next thing you know, because I was doing companies and everything, I just ended up staying there a lot longer. And when I was in Hong Kong, I was actually doing stuff in the entertainment industry where I was

essentially trying to make something kind of like a MySpace, working with celebrities and artists over there to connect to their fans. It was a lot of fun. Eventually, it didn't really...

get that big, unfortunately. But yeah, it was fun. It was interesting because when I was doing that company, it was called Alive Not Dead, we were much more on the inside of the film business, working with actors and directors and producers and stuff and being around them much more. Whereas when we were doing Rotten Tomatoes, we were based up in the Bay Area, in this place called Emeryville. And so we were a tech company, but we weren't in San Francisco or Silicon Valley.

We were a movie site, but we weren't in L.A., in Hollywood. So we kind of were just happily working on the product, but we weren't actually anywhere connected with the movie industry. I mean, even when we went to L.A., it was to meet with marketing people to sell ads. And we very rarely would ever interact with a director or an actor or a producer.

I see. So, so, you know, I was reading an article the other day that basically said, you know, the future of film is in China. Um, not only just because of the market share, um, and the market size is obviously bigger than anywhere else in the world, but also because, you know, they still have, you know, uh, uh, an interest in all these temple movies where sometimes they bomb over here. The biggest one, obviously is Warcraft bombed over here was a massive hit and hit in China. Um, that actually saved the movie, you know, it actually made its money back. Um,

So, I mean, so when you were over there, you know, Patrick, you know, what was, was that your impressions? Did you see like a thriving, you know, like film business over there and, and, and, and people just saying, you know, this, this right here is the future. Well, it was growing rapidly while I was there, you know, they're adding tons of theaters and, you know, these are large theaters and very, because they're new, they're good quality theaters. I mean, when I first got there going to some of these theaters, they were really old and junky, but it very quickly started having these like,

you know, multiplexes and stuff being built into malls and stuff. And I remember one time I was trying to go see some random movie and it was literally like sold out completely for like three or four hours. So I just had to, I had to come back later. I had to buy a ticket for like 10 PM or something and come back hours later to see it. So it'd be,

Even though in China it's not cheap, but it's something that people do is go on a date or make an event out of it. I mean, I guess it's not even that cheap here for a lot of folks as far as versus watching at home. And in China originally, there was a big problem with piracy. So tons of movies would be pirated onto DVDs and you could just buy them on the street or whatever. That's how people would watch movies. But theater going became much more of like a real experience, especially for these

bigger movies. And censorship was always an issue. So very few movies, like a dozen movies a year could come from outside of China into China. I think it's been more relaxed. And also people are doing co-production. So they'll have some of it, some money or some other thing come from China. And then it's like kind of guaranteed that it can play in China. I think Iron Man

Three was like that and Looper. But I remember one time I was watching one of the Harry Potter movies in China because I didn't have time to go out of China to watch it. And it was weird because they would re-edit it. I mean, I was reading the sub... No, I was listening to it in English and there was Chinese subtitles, but I knew it was edited because...

There was the cut where I'm like, this is something that makes sense. I mean, it literally was cut like mid-sentence. And so, yeah, they were very limited on what could get in and they would censor stuff. And I think, you know, something like Harry Potter, which has like, you know, witches essentially, you know, they would censor more heavily. But yeah, now it's huge. Just there's, I think it's the second biggest...

like a box office outside of the U.S. And so you're starting to see a lot more movies that can potentially do well there. I mean, there was movies, I think like Star Wars doesn't do well there compared to the U.S., but then there's movies like Warcraft or I imagine like a Pacific Rim or something like that. I think the ones that are more special effects that don't require like extensive knowledge of

of the background of the movie, um, work quite well over there. Uh, I imagine DC movies probably do decently, but I haven't really looked. Um, and, and, and because it's, it's, uh, subtitled, you know,

bad acting and stuff is harder to tell like if you watch a sub a move a foreign movie subtitle in english if they aren't great in their natural language you can't really tell at all like if i watch something you know from japan i'm not gonna know i mean i can tell maybe if they're acting badly but not based on what they're saying um and yeah and so what you're starting to see now is movies

uh, that are designed with China in mind as a, as a secondary market. Um, so for instance, um, there's this actor, Daniel Wu, who, uh, he was actually one of my co-founders in, uh, when I was doing my alive, not dead, uh, that is getting much bigger in the U S he got cast for, he was in Warcraft. He's one of the voices. And I think that was partly why it did

well in China. There was the one recently called Geostorm that I think did very badly in the US and actually did decently in China. And I think because they marketed it as a Daniel Wu movie, and he's also one of the main leads in the new Tomb Raider movie. So you're going to start seeing more of that where they're specifically trying to cast or make decisions with China in mind, like not as a primary market, but as a very important secondary market.

Yeah, it is. And I think at some point, you know, because I think it's it's right now it's U.S., China, then Japan is the third. And I think Great Britain is fourth. So I think at some point the first two are going to flip and maybe even the third and the fourth, because Japan has a declining population and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But but I think, you know, it'll end up being, you know.

That way. Actually, though, we didn't talk about India. And India, my friend, I mean, that's destined. I mean, Bollywood produces more movies. Do you know, since we've been talking, Patrick, Bollywood has made 100 movies? I...

Didn't know that, but I wouldn't be surprised. Since we've been talking, a hundred movies, I guarantee it. No, but they produce more movies than anybody else, bar none. Then Hollywood, and then the third is Nollywood. But I think eventually, I think China, with all the productions, they're going to start catching up very, very rapidly. I saw somewhere that

China's going to be spending like six trillion in the next couple of years and infrastructure and everything else. So, you know, it's crazy, man. It is absolutely crazy. Yeah. Another movie I just remembered was Transformers. I think Transformers is another movie that does pretty well in China. And I want to say they even they definitely cast some like Chinese celebrities for like cameos and things like that. And I think one of the movies, one of the recent ones was actually cast or like

set in Hong Kong for at least part of the movie. Yep. Yeah. So that's a good example of one where they're looking very, very heavily at China, probably as much or more than, than us. Yeah. You know, it's kind of funny. Um, I mean, I, I'm a huge, huge fan of, uh, of, of Asian culture, by the way, uh, especially, uh, China and Japan. And, uh, I, I liked how you differentiated between China and Hong Kong, um,

Because literally Hong Kong, up until 1999 or 2000, was under British rule. And then China's slowly been trying to sort of say, okay, you're a part of us. You know what I mean? So I caught that. I actually...

No, no. And I know exactly where you're coming from with that because it is, you know, I've had friends who go over there and they even say the same thing. Like, you know, their parents were Chinese or are Chinese. They came over here, were born in America, but they went back over and they always differentiate between, you know, China and Hong Kong. That's why I always wondered if Transformers was going to be set in like Beijing or Sichuan or something like that.

Would the Chinese government be okay with them destroying the whole city, but Hong Kong, you know, tightly packed, maybe a little more leeway, if you know what I mean. I think they would be open to doing stuff in China as well, and I think China would be open to it too. But I imagine it's easier to get things done in Hong Kong because I think the Hong Kong film industry is pretty, you know, mature. And there's... I imagine it's easier to get the things you need, like...

you know, support staff for your film. You know, anything like that. Versus in China, I think it's a lot younger. And also in Hong Kong, a lot of people speak English. So I imagine it's much, much easier to film there than in China. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you, do you speak Mandarin fluently? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. Conversationally. But I don't, and I don't speak Cantonese. Okay.

So, well, I know because Cantonese is mainly in Hong Kong, right? Yeah. And also Guangzhou, like the part of China closest to Hong Kong. Okay. Yeah, I know Mandarin is actually supposed to be like the natural language. And I know I have friends who went over to China to teach, like Peter Marvel has been on the podcast. And, you know, they've had to start taking Mandarin classes to make sure there's, you know, at least so they can get around and stuff. But yeah.

But, you know, Patrick, I know we've kind of gone over the time limit. I know you're extremely busy. So just in closing, Patrick, is there anything we get a chance to talk about that maybe you want to talk about right now or anything you want to say to put a period at the end of this whole conversation? Let me think. I guess as far as Rotten Tomatoes goes, yeah.

For me, at least, I'm happy it's still around and it's going strong. I think, actually, it makes a lot of sense for it to be with Fandango, specifically because...

you know one of the biggest things we always had was this like love hate relationship with the studios yet we were dependent like they were like half our revenue was came from advertising so we are very dependent on the studios for uh to thrive um and something like fandango or like a netflix is what i always thought you know made the most sense for like a rotten tomatoes where um

The money that you make are from the people that you're serving the best, which is the users. Like studios, you're helping them half the time, let's say. But users, you help all the time, regardless of if a movie is fresh or rotten, you're still helping them. And so being able to generate the revenue from those users has always been the best way of doing it. And we're running it. We're a very small team. We're like seven people most of the time.

we didn't have the ability at that time to go out and sell movie tickets or, you know, rent DVDs or rent videos or, or stream videos. Um, but it's always been kind of like the natural fit in my opinion, um, getting users, getting the money directly from the people you're serving all the time. Uh, so that's, those are my main thoughts. Um, you know, and also for people who are looking at Rotten Tomatoes, you know, look at,

all the different types of ratings within Rotten Tomatoes. Look at the critics' Tomatometer score as well as the average rating. Look at the users' Tomatometer score as well as the average rating. And if you look at all four of those, you're going to have a pretty good idea of whether or not, you know, it's the movie for you to see. Oh, Patrick, one more question. Where can people find you at online? I believe...

Look me up at Rotten Doubt. So Rotten from Rotten Tomatoes. Doubt, D-O-U-B-T. I used to be a very big No Doubt fan, so I just kind of merged the two together. And that's kind of the username I use for like Instagram, Twitter, everywhere.

I see. I actually thought it was like a double entendre for the name, like, you know, like, you know, the movie's rotten and you're doubting, like, you know what I mean? Like a rotten doubt. Like, I doubt that's rotten. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, that's the other thing I liked about it was it's kind of like a double negative. So it's kind of like, yeah, see, it got me thinking. So it kind of it worked. Yeah. Patrick Lee, thank you so much for coming on, sir. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Dave.

I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at indiefilmhustle.com forward slash 802. And if you haven't already, please head over to filmmakingpodcast.com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening, guys. As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive. Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at IndieFilmHustle.com. That's I-N-D-I-E-F-I-L-M-H-U-S-T-L-E.com.