Share. "We have identified a bug in the post-release functionality." "We have identified a bug in the post-release functionality."

Rotten Tomatoes blames "a bug" for tens of thousands of audience reviews for Captain Marvel showing up within the opening hours of the latest MCU film before the site deleted them.

Within hours of Captain Marvel hitting theaters, roughly 58,000 audience reviews had flooded the critical aggregator site, plummeting the Marvel movie's Audience Score down to 33%. Captain Marvel's Audience Score now sits, at the time this article was published, at 53% with over 35,000 user ratings, while the film's critical Tomatometer score is certified "fresh" at 79%.

58,000 audience reviews hitting within hours of the film's release, as The Hollywood Reporter points out, "is more than the total of audience score reviews for Avengers: Infinity War for its entire theatrical run."

According to Rotten Tomatoes, this inflated initial number was because thousands of those audience reviews were submitted by users before the movie even opened, a functionality the site recently retooled in order to prevent online trolls from "review-bombing" them with fake negative reviews.

It seems Rotten Tomatoes' newly implemented system was immediately beset by technical difficulties.

Every Marvel Studios Rotten Tomatoes Score 10+ IMAGES Fullscreen Image Artboard 3 Copy Artboard 3 ESC 01 OF 22 Every Marvel Studios Rotten Tomatoes Score



Scroll through to see how all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies scored on the Tomatometer. According to the site, "Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide-release movies, 40 for limited-release movies, 20 for TV shows), including 5 reviews from Top Critics." 01 OF 22 Every Marvel Studios Rotten Tomatoes Score



Scroll through to see how all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies scored on the Tomatometer. According to the site, "Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide-release movies, 40 for limited-release movies, 20 for TV shows), including 5 reviews from Top Critics." Every Marvel Studios Rotten Tomatoes Score Download Image Captions ESC

Rotten Tomatoes claims a glitch nevertheless counted thousands of pre-release user scores in that initial Audience Score of 33%. In a statement to THR, Rotten Tomatoes said: "We launched some changes to the movie pre-release functionality last week, which included not allowing users to leave a comment or review prior to a movie’s release in theatres. However, we still invite users to vote if they 'want to see' a movie prior to its release, and that vote total is displayed on the site.

"We have identified a bug in the post-release functionality for the movies that have released into theaters since our product update last week. The quantity of user ratings (which is displayed directly below the audience score and is intended to only include the quantity of users who have left a rating or written review after a movie’s release) had included both pre-release and post-release fan voting."

Rotten Tomatoes' Audience Scores is certainly not the only metric for gauging what filmgoers think of a movie. There's also CinemaScore, which is based on audience exit polling conducted opening night. Captain Marvel received an "A" CinemaScore.

Exit Theatre Mode

For more on Captain Marvel, check out our review, find out what our biggest WTF questions about the film, dive into our breakdown of the end credits scenes, learn the reason why Nick Fury hasn't mentioned Captain Marvel before, discover which classic Marvel character was gender-swapped for the movie, and explore the timeline of THAT confusing Captain Marvel object.