Warner Bros owns Rotten Tomatoes (through the social movie site Flixster.com). Warner Bros also owns The Dark Knight Rises (with co-financier Legendary Pictures). Now the studio finds itself with the weird and rare dilemma of protecting movie reviewers who hated the movie from furious Rotten Tomatoes readers. AP reports tonight that RottenTomatoes.com for the first time ever suspended user comments today on movie reviews of the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy hitting theaters Friday. Why? Because the comments savaged and threatened those critics who wrote negative reviews, including Marshall Fine of Hollywood & Fine, Christy Lemire of The Associated Press, and Nick Pinkerton of the Village Voice. However the movie overall has an 84% positive rating on RottenTomatoes.com. Matt Atchity, the site’s editor-in-chief, told the AP: “It just got to be too much hate.” There’s no doubt that RottenTomatoes.com is a controversial site – and even more so now. Atchity also told The AP he is worried about a similar backlash when director Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is released later this year. “We may do away with comments completely or get to a place where comments are only activated after a movie opens.”

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