The embargo for Venom, a new Marvel movie starring Tom Hardy, lifted on Wednesday morning. And while the overwhelmingly negative critical reaction is unlikely to please distributors Sony, it seems likely to gladden the hearts of those Lady Gaga fans who have identified Venom as chief competition to Gaga’s new film, A Star Is Born.

On Tuesday, negative Twitter reactions to Venom – which have been charted by Buzzfeed – raised suspicions about their motivation on account of their similarly phrased critiques:

Okay, something is up. The negativity around the #Venom movie is looking very artificial. pic.twitter.com/f5LWF3z7Xd — Nobody In California (@NobodyInCali) October 2, 2018

Sooooo there are BOTS attacking the #Venom movie. LMAO pic.twitter.com/CNXAtRtEd8 — Atomic (@AtomicSpidey) October 2, 2018

Others combined attacks on Venom with plugs for A Star Is Born. One read: “Just got out of a #Venom⁠ ⁠preview. Thankfully it was free. Worst two hours of my life. I will be taking my wife to see Lady GaGa’s new movie #AStarIsBorn with Bradley Cooper on Friday. Their song Shallow is great.”

Another said: “Just got back from seeing #Venom in theatre. So disappointed. Lots of democrat nonsense, pushing LGBT agenda down throat too. Disgusted. I can’t believe I am saying this but I might have to take the kids to see #AStarIsBorn tomorrow to make up for the terrible night. Very sad.”

A Marvel fansite flagged the possible campaign:

Beware of fake #Venom movie reviews. There are people trying to promote Lady Gaga's #AStarIsBorn and are fabricating negative reviews. Look out for bots and only trust proper and regular reviewers. pic.twitter.com/v9xznuN5R7 — Marvel Mania™ (@marvel_maniac_) October 2, 2018

However, the power of Gaga fans to leverage change at cinemas was thrown into question earlier this month when the film failed to win the People’s Choice award at the Toronto film festival. This coveted prize, considered a barometer of future Oscars success, is voted for by audiences, theoretically as they exit the cinema after a screening. But a new facility allowing for online voting raised the concern that Gaga fans who hadn’t seen the film would flood the digital ballot box.

The top prize was awarded to Green Book, a road movie starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk and Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma as runners up.

Nonetheless, A Star Is Born is considered a strong Oscars favourite and goes into this year’s race the frontrunner to take best picture.

In his review, the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw dismissed Venom as a “clumsy, monolithic and fantastically boring superhero movie-slash-entertainment-franchise-iteration”.