10 Movies That Had MASSIVE Tomatometer Drops

Wonder Woman 1984 sank like a stone with critics.

Wonder Woman 1984
Warner Bros.

Though opinion on art is fundamentally subjective, there's no denying that the majority of movies are somewhat defined by their critical reception, particularly the rating they receive from critics' aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

The website has been influential enough with audiences that studios have gotten into the habit of carefully planning their review rollout in order to minimise potential financial harm caused by negative notices.

In the case of these 10 films, each started out with a promising, even genuinely great Tomatometer score, only for a more concerning picture to emerge in the days and weeks later when the wider press pool got their hands on them.

These movies all saw their approval ratings fall off a cliff, ensuring that the early impression of a critical darling was totally obliterated in the process.

Whether the steep drop had any effect on the movie's box office or not, these cases are all worth remembering whenever a movie's opening batch of reviews are uniformly positive.

Often there are other factors at play, both innocent and nefarious, but a clearer picture of a film's true quality generally only emerges closer to release...

10. The Lion King (2019)

Wonder Woman 1984
Disney

Initial Score: 67%

Final Score: 52% (15% drop)

Though a Tomatometer drop of "only" 15% might seem positively acceptable compared to every other movie on this list, it was still hugely a hugely disappointing decline for one of 2019's most anticipated films - Jon Favreau's "live-action" remake of Disney's The Lion King.

Given that Favreau's 2016 remake of The Jungle Book rocks a mighty 94% approval from critics, expectations were high that Favreau would deliver a worthy, crowd-pleasing re-imagination of one of Disney's most beloved animations.

When the review embargo lifted, the first wave of reviews made it clear that the 2019 The Lion King was no masterpiece, yet its 69% Tomatometer score still suggested it was a rock solid effort all the same.

By the time hundreds of reviews came pouring in, the score had slipped to 52%, granting it a most dispiriting "Rotten" status with critics, with many fixating on the "soullessness" of the near-photoreal animal CGI.

In a year where remakes of both Dumbo (46%) and Aladdin (57%) had fallen short of the critical mark, The Lion King's shockingly mediocre reception undeniably stung the worst.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.