Morbius: The Reverse Gap
Most discussion of score gaps focuses on films critics loved and audiences did not. Morbius (2022) is the opposite case. When it opened, it carried a 17% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 69% audience score, with a CinemaScore of C+ and a $39.1 million opening weekend against a reported $75 million production budget (Fortune, 3 April 2022).
| Source | Reported value | Side |
|---|---|---|
| Rotten Tomatoes critics | 17% | Press |
| Rotten Tomatoes audience | 69% | Audience |
| CinemaScore | C+ | Audience (opening night) |
| Opening weekend | $39.1 million | Commercial |
| Production budget | $75 million | Commercial |
Source: Fortune.
Two ways to read a 52-point gap
The two reported Rotten Tomatoes percentages are 52 percentage points apart. That is a raw difference, not a reconstruction of the HCS weighted index. The reported audience percentage and the opening-night letter grade also measure different things; a C+ cannot be interpreted as the same numeric scale as a positive-rating percentage. Without checking which Rotten Tomatoes audience pool was quoted, we should not describe it as anonymous or conclude that irony or manipulation explains its value.
Taken together, the honest summary is not "critics were wrong" or "audiences were wrong". It is that press was strongly negative, ticket buyers were lukewarm, and a segment of online viewers were more generous than either. A single blended number would have hidden all three facts.
Why we note the date
The figures above were reported on opening weekend. Rotten Tomatoes audience scores change as more people vote, so always check the live values before citing them. Our tool lets you type in current values and recalculate. Open the tool.