IFH 802: Studios, Scores & Secrets: The Untold Story of Rotten Tomatoes with Patrick Lee

Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:54
On this week's episode, I'm going to talk to the co founder of rotten tomatoes, very polarizing website we talk about that, you know, it's the internet's leading film critic source, and almost any trying to get into film news. But you rotten tomatoes, it's, you know, depending on who you ask, some people think it's great. So we will think it's, it's just terrible. But, and the reason being, we're gonna, Patrick and I are gonna talk about all that in this episode, about, you know about bias, that there is some you know what he's he's handled, about studios calling in and complaining about negative reviews and all that good stuff. With guest, Patrick Lee.

Patrick Lee 2:33
Before Rotten Tomatoes, my co founders and I, we had a design firm called Design reactor, and originally we were doing design work for anybody and doing any kind of design work, including, you know, print 3d design and web design. And eventually we decided to focus it just around web design for the entertainment industry. So we managed to kind of get a foothold into our foot in the door, into Disney Channel, and eventually grew that relationship with them to the point where we were doing majority of their web pages and games. We also started working with a lot of other entertainment companies, including ABC, Warner Brothers, artisan entertainment, MTV, BH, one. We made the online flash game for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. And so from there, we kind of ended up transitioning to Rotten Tomatoes. Our creative director at the time, sand Duong, came up with the idea for on tomatoes. So he created it. And this is while he was still at design reactor, and he ended up doing this on the side. Came up with the idea for Rotten Tomatoes. Basically, you know, if you back then, you would open up a newspaper, you see a full page ad for a movie. It would look like a movie poster, and it had a bunch of quotes on it, except all those quotes would always be good. And his idea was just like, what if I put all the quotes good and bad on, you know, one page in the similar format, and kind of show you the percentage of good versus out of the total. And that's how he came up with the idea for on tomatoes. So he ran that for about a year on the side. And eventually we were like, You know what? Maybe this should be the business. So we transitioned out of our design firm, raised some money for Rotten Tomatoes, and then pass our design from off to another group.

Dave Bullis 4:31
So, you know, I like that idea too. You know, you see everything on each side of the coin. And, you know, that's, that's just interesting with how everything has become nowadays, you know? Because, like, Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you've seen movies nowadays where you've seen the trailers and stuff like that, where they've said, like, Rotten Tomatoes. It's Certified Fresh, you know, I you've seen that, right? Patrick, yeah, yeah. So, so it's like a friend of mine and I were talking the other day, and he goes, you know, why does everyone mention Rotten Tomatoes and ads now? And I go, they have to, that's like, the barometer. Now, you know what? I mean? Like, it's like, they, if it's certified fresh, it's like, that's a stamp of approval.

Patrick Lee 5:04
Yeah, yeah. So originally, we didn't have that. I mean, it used to be just a movie was fresh about 60% or above. And the reason why send decided on 60% was he felt like 50% was like, half, half. And he's like, Oh, that doesn't seem positive enough. So he decided three out of every five, so 60% and then we didn't come up with Certified Fresh until years later, probably about three or four years in, and it was actually our sales person, Evan Cohet, who I think really came up with the idea when he was talking to studios and they, you know, basically, we found that when a studio bought advertising with us, if the movie ended up, you know, fresh, they would have a high chance of buying more, obviously, if they ended up rotten, it was, it was kind of a nightmare, and they would be very unhappy, but we couldn't control that. And so one thing that Evan kind of came up with, it was, he's like, you know, maybe we should create something kind of above us, fresh. And so, you know, and this was, I think it was when we were talking with Fox Searchlight, and they were like, kind of giving us similar feedback. And that's when we're like, Yeah, that might make sense, you know, if a movie is really good, if we should kind of separate that out. And so in that case, it's movies that are 75% or above, so three out of every four. And then, yeah, nowadays, yeah, I see it all over the place, you know, it'll be on DVD, you know, cases and in trailers for movies. And it's, it's always cool when I see that.

Dave Bullis 6:49
So when you mentioned all the studios, if they, if they, if they, if the movie ended up being certified fresh, or even fresh, you know, they would be more, you know, I guess, I guess, dispositioned, if you will, you know, to buy more ads. But if the movie didn't, you know, ended up being rotten. List says rotten, you know, they wouldn't buy more ads. Was there ever a point in a time where, I mean, you know, you said they were very unhappy? Was ever a time where it got like, really bad, where, you know, maybe they said, you know, hey, Patrick, you know, I we just feel this movie is being like, unjustly, you know, sort of skewed.

Patrick Lee 7:24
Yeah, so studios and maybe other people in entertainment industry, they, they have a love, hate relationship with rotten tomatoes, depending on what the score is, you know, if, yeah, if it's fresh, they'll put it everywhere. They'll, they'll do marketing around that, which, you know, creates more awareness for Rotten Tomatoes, but when it's rotten, they'll be really unhappy we've had, you know, studios, producers, etc, marketing people threatening to pull ad campaigns or threatening to never advertise with us again, and especially when a movie is kind of like close to being fresh. So in the 50s or high 40s, they'll try really, really hard to improve the score. And, you know, obviously we can't change anything. We don't write the reviews, but they'll go through and they'll try and find reviews that we didn't include, that are fresh or positive, and almost always like those are not from professional critics. There'll be some, you know, random magazine or radio station or something we're like, well, that doesn't count. That's not one of our critics, so we can't add that. But then they'll also go through, read all the rotten reviews and come back and say, like, this one's fresh and this one's fresh, you rated it wrong. And in those cases, you know, we'll take a second look. And in some cases, it is wrong. We actually created tools for the critics to submit themselves. And it's even possible where we're like, it does look like it should be fresh, and we'll go back and ping the critic, and then they'll, you know, say, oh, yeah, like, it's fresh or rotten or whatever. And so studios will try really, really hard to change your score, especially if it's something like, you know, 59% and ends up being, you know, rotten. But if it was 60% to be fresh, that's like, they'll fight very, very hard at that point. And I imagine, I mean, it's been a long time since we ran it, like we sold it in 2004 it's been 14 years ago, but I, from what I've heard, it's this still happens now, and it's, I imagine it will always happen,

Dave Bullis 9:29
Yeah, and also, yeah, I was a question I was going to have for you too, was, you know, what, what is considered a professional critic? Because you mentioned, you know, you have different radio stations, or your hell even, even me, you know. And they're probably like, you know, we don't care what Dave has to say about but a movie, you know what I mean. And it's just that. That's why I always wondered, you know, because you know, with with, with media, the way it is nowadays. You know, anybody can start a podcast or a Twitter, Twitter account or YouTube channel. You know it. And that's where you have to ask yourself, you know, where do you draw the line between a professional critic and a non professional critic?

Patrick Lee 10:06
Right! I mean, when we started, there were no podcasts, as if I remember correctly, we had rules. I don't. I haven't looked recently, so I have no idea if they're the same. But back then, it'd be like, ideally, you would have to have a certain amount of reach, and it could be online or magazine or newspaper or television or whatever, as well as a certain number of reviews that you would do every year, because it wouldn't be, you know, an obvious sign is, if you did like one review a year, then you're, you're pretty much not a professional critic. Doesn't matter what your reach is. We also would include things like, Oh, if you are part of a professional critics society, so like the LA Film critic society or New York, or, you know, things like that. So we had different criteria of what we considered a professional critic. And the thing is, anyone can still rate, so it's just that, are you in a pool of, you know, a couple 100 people? Are you in pool of, you know, millions of people?

Dave Bullis 11:17
Yeah, and that's a good that's a good point, you know, because, you know, reach, I guess, is technically subjective, because I, you know, I see people who have Twitter followers, who are who have maybe six figures of Twitter followers, but their actual reach, their actual, uh, engagement, is so low, and you kind of wonder, where, how that, you know, did they buy the followers? Did they take over someone else's account? And then this is just kind of stagnant, you know what I mean?

Patrick Lee 11:41
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's definitely an issue. And I, I haven't looked, but I don't know if they actually have professional critics that are primarily through Twitter or podcasts. I think most of the critics usually have some site or something where they, you know, their actual full review is printed or, you know, online, so that way users can click over and read it,

Dave Bullis 12:07
Yeah, like, you know, like, like Richard Roper and like Roger Ebert, you know, well, Roger, obviously, he's deceased, but he still has the website up where, you know, he has a Critic Circle and stuff,

Patrick Lee 12:16
Yeah, exactly.

Dave Bullis 12:18
So, you know, as we talked about, you know, the unfair skew and stuff like that. I wanted to ask your reaction, you know, a couple. I think when was it? When Batman versus Superman came out? I know there was some kind of backlash from fans. I don't know if you, if you ever heard about this or saw this, but basically, they were saying that the critics were always being unfair to DC movies. It was, it was Batman versus Superman, and then it was suicide squad. You know, when stuff like that happens and you start to see this, like, online reaction, whether it be from, like, fans or something, you know, generally speaking, did Rotten Tomatoes, like, ever pay attention stuff like that? Do they ever say like, oh, maybe, you know, maybe there is a skewer at all. You know what I mean.

Patrick Lee 13:02
I mean, this all happened again after we've sold it, but I believe there's a point in time when, I mean, we had controversy even way back when we were running it, but not as much because user reviews Weren't we introduced that. But it wasn't as big a part of the site as it is now. I remember, I think it was dark night. Was very, very high, highly rated. And there's like, a few critics that gave rotten ratings, and I think they were getting, like, death threats or something, to a point where, yeah, it was like a big problem for them. And there are even cases where there are critics who will, as far as we know, purposely give a rating opposite of everyone else, just to essentially affect the tomato meter score. I think that happened recently with the Lady Bird, and there's a critic it was like a perfect 100% and one critic gave it a rotten even though his review should have been considered a fresh. And I think it was specifically because he was like, This is not 100% movie, in his opinion, as far as DC, I from what I had read, like you users were actually like, Rotten Tomatoes hates DC movies, which was funny, because at the time, Rotten Tomatoes was owned by Warner Brothers, which owns DC, you Know, Like, if it was going to have any favoritism, it would actually, you would imagine it would be for DC. And even now, I think under it's owned by Fandango, but I think that's even, I think Warner Brothers still owns a decent chunk of it. And, yeah, and for DC movies, you know, outside of Wonder Woman, recently, critics tend to be harder on them, and there's a pretty big difference from the critic score and the user score. And in that case, you kind of have to you know when you're like deciding about whether or not you should see the movie you should see you should think about. Do you tend to agree more with the critics or the or the general movie goer, when the boat, when they both agree, like it's both saying fresh or both saying run, it's very, very accurate when they disagree. And you get that when it's like an art house movie, you can have critics giving very high score and users giving a much lower score, and vice versa, you know, when it's a comedy or, you know, like a DC movie, critics give a low score, and users can give a much, much higher score. The other thing that you have to consider is is two things. One, critics have to see everything. That's why they're professional critics, and so that's why that score. I think, you know, critics do have a bias towards more art house, indie, drama, you know, that kind of stuff, than an average movie goer. But they see everything, so it's easier to compare their scores across when it's users. Well, number one, a user doesn't even have to see the movie to rate it. And this is true of any site that has user ratings. I mean, I guess Amazon has verified purchases, but like you go on indp, you go on Rotten Tomatoes, you go on any of those sites, you'll see the user rating is not really necessarily reliable. Even like Yelp, you can totally just go on there, put a rating in for something that you've never been to, and even assuming that that's only a small percentage of the total number of user ratings, these users are willingly going and paying their own money to see that movie. So they're more predisposed to want to like it. And so when the user rating is actually rotten, then it's pretty safe to say that that movie is quite rotten. But when it's the other way around, with user, critics are giving it rotten and the user is giving it fresh, then you kind of have to be like, am I the kind of user that would like this kind of movie? So I guess that's all the way ways to kind of look at the scores.

Dave Bullis 17:03
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, you know. And again, with with Wonder Woman being the the one DC movie that that sort of been has been judged a little more, you know, has been received a little more better than by the critics and the public. I think I'm fairly certain that Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad. I fairly certain. The critics hated both of those, and they fared a little bit better with the audiences.

Patrick Lee 17:25
I think they definitely did better. Yeah, for sure. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Dave Bullis 17:30
I was gonna say on a side note, Patrick, I actually Suicide Squad actually gave me an impetus for an idea for another podcast I actually was doing, like a test version of it. And I, you know, I was after I saw Suicide Squad, I was with some friends of mine, and we were just talking back and forth. And I actually got the idea to start another podcast where, basically, I just, you know, in the movie business, when you when you have a bad script, or, you know, it's called you this is a total rewrite, like I'd give it, you know, if I came in your office, Patrick, and you were the studio had and you were like, look, look, Bullis, this is terrible. This is a total rewrite. Page. One rewrite I would, that was the idea for the podcast, is I would actually take a movie that is sort of not done so well, and how would I have written it? So that's actually in the next phase of something I'm gonna launch, probably sooner than later, but, but I've done some test versions of it just to see how people played out, which is, which is also, by the way, just something cool you can do with the media we have have nowadays. You can do, like, test versions and stuff, you know. So it was actually pretty cool, but, but I just wanted to mention as like, a side note, oh, that sounds cool, yeah, for sure. So, but, but I'm sorry I interrupt you, what were you gonna say?

Patrick Lee 18:43
Oh, no, I was, I was saying, Yeah, I'm pretty sure both of those cases, the user scores were a lot higher. And now I, from what I've been seeing, there's actually almost like an anti Marvel, anti Disney kind of contingent that are, I believe, trying to push the user scores down for like, Marvel movies.

Dave Bullis 19:02
Yeah, it's, it's kind of like another kind of fandom, kind of like gang war type thing, you know? So, and I just going back to the film critics, I want to mention this too. You know, we talked about, they see everything because they have to, just by the nature, but also they, they have to dissect a movie. So I always say this, you can dissect the movie with a surgeon scalpel or a machete. We dissect it with a surgeon scalpel. You have to discuss, you know, not only performances, but the writing, the lighting, the direction, everything, and that's where you go through and you say, hey, what we know? What is all this stuff? You know? What is, what is the good, the bad, the ugly with a machete, you're just kind of saying, Look, I didn't like it, and that's that. So I think that's why critics, I think the critics score like we were just saying, that's, you know, again, why? Why it would weigh a little bit more than say, you know, it just right, having some person with a random podcast, you know what I mean?

Patrick Lee 19:55
Right, right, right. I think the other thing that a lot of times people get like, misunderstand about Rotten Tomatoes is, at least when we were running it, the way we looked at it was the percentage score, the tomato meter, is basically the percent chance that you'll like seeing a movie. Because what it is is it's like, what percent critics of the critics recommend seeing it, you know? So if it's 80% you could be that 80% that's gonna like it, or you could be the 20% that's not gonna like it. So you'll see people who always come out to me, and they're like, Yeah, this movie was like 10% but I still like that. I'm like, Yeah, you're the 10% that would like it, or vice versa. Hey, this movie is 90% but I didn't like it. I'm like, Yeah, you're the 10% that wouldn't like it. And for the most part, I feel like that makes a lot more sense, because we also show things like the average rating and stuff. So a movie could be 100% but its average rating isn't necessarily a 10 out of 10. It's, it could be, you know, seven out of 10, where everyone's like, yeah, it's not bad. I mean, it's not like the greatest movie ever, but everyone agrees that it's worth seeing. You know, like, typically, Pixar movies will fall under that. I mean, I think they actually, their average rating is also pretty high, but they're the kind of movies that are close to universally like, Yeah, you should probably go see it. Especially the early ones, like a toy story. I think it was 100% or I think it is still 100% and it's the kind of movie that back then, everyone was like, Yeah, this is worth checking out. I imagine something like matrix. I haven't looked at the score in a long time, but it's probably when it came out. It's the kind of movie that's like, Yeah, you should probably go check it out. So I think that's one thing that people look at the tomato meter and they just assume it means, you know, kind of like, average rating, and they're actually kind of different.

Dave Bullis 21:49
You know, I was actually talking about friends, sorry, talking with friends about some of the highest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. No, the Toy Story two held the record for, like, the perfect score until Lady Bird, and then till that one critic we actually just mentioned. And now I think Black Panther has the record, because I think it's 100% now still,

Patrick Lee 22:11
I think is, did Paddington two or whatever get a negative review? Because I was reading some articles not too long ago where it was actually the new record holder.

Dave Bullis 22:21
Really, I actually didn't hear that.

Patrick Lee 22:23
Let me, let me look it up, see if it's still 100% but yeah, no, it was, which is weird, because I, I never saw number one. I don't remember hearing anything about number one, but yeah, now I'm actually curious to go see it both of them, because I'm like, how's that? Yeah, it's still 100%

Dave Bullis 22:43
Paddington two. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Patrick Lee 22:45
What is? Let me look at what. And the audience scores 89% let me see what Paddington one is, 98 and 80. I guess they're both pretty high. Um, yeah, when I mean, at least for me, when I I saw the trailer, it's not exactly my type of movie, although I do like animated stuff, I just kind of in my brain, just assumed it was like a Garfield or something.

Dave Bullis 23:08
So Patrick, now you mentioned, what are your type of movies? Like, what type of movies do you like watching? Like, who are some of your favorite directors?

Patrick Lee 23:14
So my two co founders, Steven and Sen. Steven was our CTO. Sen was the creator, and he handled the product. They were big movie buffs. Steven watches, he'll watch, like, Art House stuff, like the Oscars type, you know, best pictures. He'll watch all of them. Sen, I think was a little bit more into, like, sci fi animation, Kung Fu, that kind of stuff. And I would say I'd fall more on that towards send but even more casual. So I'm like the summer blockbuster guy. I'll watch comic book stuff, superhero stuff, sci fi, fantasy comedies, action adventure like that tends to be my, my thing like to be honest, before they went to 10 movies a year, on Best Picture, when it was five, most likely, I would have seen Zero out of five. And when they went to 10, I might have seen like two, which is usually the ones that are more like the Sci Fi fantasy kind of ones that get thrown in there. Although, I mean, when I do watch movies that are, like, highly rated that are not in my typical kind of movies that I would go to. Yeah, generally, I enjoy it. I just don't, for me, at least, I just don't seek it out. I tend to watch the movies that because I like to watch movies in theaters, and I want to watch the movies that go well in theaters, so, you know, like things like Star Wars or Avengers, or, you know, something like that.

Dave Bullis 24:42
Yeah, it's, I know exactly what you mean. And you know what has happened to me is, Patrick, is I've gotten kind of so burned out with the superhero movies and the Star Wars and everything else that, you know, I honestly am becoming like, you know, I'm 30 years old, and I'm becoming like, nine. 90. I'm 30, going on 90, where I just want to sit home and watch an art house movie now, and I'm just like, good. I would just rather watch this, or, you know, some, some French foreign film, rather than seeing all these new blockbusters. You know what? I mean, it's just, I'm just at that point, man,

Patrick Lee 25:17
Yeah. I mean, I actually watch a lot of movies. I would say I watch probably, like three, two or three movies a month in theaters. Maybe, maybe, you know, kind of goes up and down depending on what's out there. Um, but yeah, like my co founders, Stephen and Sen, they're much more, they're much bigger movie buffs. I was more like this, doing company with friends, doing something that I felt was interesting. So I do like entertainment. I do like movies, but they're much more like they can talk deeply about directors and producers and all that stuff. And I'm, I'm like the surface level, like more like average movie goer. But I think in a way, it kind of worked for our company, because I could kind of come at it from a different point of view on things. When we're talking about features and other things, I come at it much more like, Hey, I'm a more like a regular user,

Dave Bullis 26:09
Yeah, and that's good too, because as again, we talk about the critic versus the regular audience, you know, and that that I think works out well just the same. Because, I mean, most people going to movies, they, you know, they, they have, they have their favorite parts of movies. They remember certain scenes. But I mean, when you know, have you ever watched a movie with people who are in the film business? You know what I mean? They start to use, they start to talk about all these other sorts of things, and that's why I tend to have different groups of friends. Like, if I'm, if I have friends in the film business, I'll go see a movie with them. And it's a whole different experience, and it's a whole different conversation before and after than if I go with my regular friends who have other jobs.

Patrick Lee 26:47
Yeah, no, totally. It's it's super different when you watch with them. And for me, I just a lot of times I'm just like, do I get like, end up believing like I'm in the movie, you know? And whether it's acting on story and plot. And for me, usually at the end, I'll be like, like, things like plot holes and stuff drive me kind of crazy. But yeah, when you're with movie business people, depending on who you're with, they'll be looking at the cinematography or the acting and all that kind of stuff. And generally, like, as long as the acting is passable, it doesn't bother me too much. But every once while, you will see people who are like, oh, man, they shouldn't be in movies. Or maybe they're just, you know, very good looking or something.

Dave Bullis 27:34
Yeah, it's not everything. Could be like, the room, you know. Have you seen the room?

Patrick Lee 27:40
No, but I yeah, I know. Okay, good. What you're talking about? Yeah, I'm actually kind of curious to see both movies and, you know, see how close it was and, or, you know, I, and there's a book about it, and everything too, yeah.

Dave Bullis 27:55
Disaster artist, yeah, in my opinion, Patrick, I would see in the order, like, watch the room first, and then watch the disaster artists, and then you'll, I think you'll appreciate a little more.

Patrick Lee 28:11
Yeah, that probably makes sense.

Dave Bullis 28:13
So you can see all the, all the fun parts of it. So, you know, Patrick, you ended up selling Rotten Tomatoes, and you sort of started to move on to different projects. So, so what are you working on now?

Patrick Lee 28:23
So, yeah, after we sold, I went to Asia for like nine years, doing two different startups, and then I came back and one of my friends that I did my my first company with, before ronton, was before design reactor. This guy, Lyle Fong, he he also did startups. He did a company called lithium technologies that did, you know, quite well, and we were just like, talking about maybe doing something together, and decided to make a game. So we're making hobo labs makes mobile games. We just launched our game A week ago, called storm the gates, and it's like, it's like a multiplayer, like a game you play with other people against other people. So it's a player versus player kind of game that you play on your phone. And it's, it's a role playing game, you know, you have a little character, and you can get spells and get items and gear and stuff like that. And the reason why I'm doing it is it's actually a super tough industry. It's very hit space. So your game comes out, it could be a total bomb, or it could be a huge hit. It's not always easy to tell what it's going to be, or it could just be very kind of average. And it's just because my co founder and I have loved playing games since we were little, like, I'm actually a bigger gamer than I am. Like, well, no, I guess I do like games, I like movies and I like music, but as far as being hardcore, I'm probably more hardcore as a gamer than I've been on the movie side.

Dave Bullis 30:03
You mentioned you went to Asia for nine years. Was it primarily in China?

Patrick Lee 30:09
I went to China for three years, Hong Kong for six. So I'm actually Chinese, but I was born in LA, grew up in the States. So I was like, Yeah, you know, it'd be interesting to try and see what it's like outside of the US. And I originally planned on going for, you know, like, two or three years. And next thing you know, because I was doing companies and everything, I just ended up staying there a lot longer. And when I was in Hong Kong, I was actually doing stuff in the entertainment industry where I was essentially trying to make something kind of like a MySpace, working with celebrities and artists over there to connect to their fans. It was a lot of fun. Eventually, it didn't really get that big, unfortunately, but, um, but yeah, it was. It was fun. Is is, uh, interesting. Because when I was doing that company, it's called alive, not dead, we were much more on the kind of like inside of the film business, like working with actors and directors and producers and stuff and and being around them much more, whereas when we were doing Rotten Tomatoes, we were based up in the Bay Area, you know, in this place called Emeryville, and so, you know, we were tech company, but we weren't in San Francisco or Silicon Valley. We were a movie site, but we weren't in LA in Hollywood. So we kind of were just happily working on the product, but we weren't actually anywhere like, connected with the movie industry. I mean, even when we went to LA it was to meet with marketing people to buy, you know, to sell ads. And we very rarely would ever interact with like a director or an actor or a producer.

Dave Bullis 31:33
I see so. So, you know, I was reading an article the other day that basically said, you know, the future of film is in China, not only just because of the market share, and the market size is obviously bigger than anywhere else in the world, but also because, you know, they still have, you know, an interest in all these temple movies where sometimes they bomb over here, the biggest one, obviously, is Warcraft bombed over here was a massive hidden hit in China that actually saved the movie. You know, it actually made its money back. So, I mean, so when you were over there, you know, Patrick, you know, what was, was that your impressions? Did you see, like, a thriving, you know, like film business over there and, and you and people just saying, you know, this, this, right here, is the future.

Patrick Lee 32:13
Well, it was growing rapidly while I was there, you know, they're adding tons of theaters. And, you know, these are large theaters, and very because they're new, they're good quality theaters. I mean, when I first got there, going to some of these theaters, they were really old and junky, but it very quickly started having these, like, you know, multiplexes and stuff being built into malls and stuff. And I remember one time I was trying to go see some random movie, and it was literally, like, sold out completely for like, three or four hours. So I just had to, I had to come back later. I had to buy a ticket for like, 10pm or something, and come back hours later to see it. So it'd be, even though it's in China. It's not cheap, but it's something that you know people do is going on a date or make an event out of it. I mean, I guess it's not even that cheap here for a lot of folks, as far as you know, versus watching at home and in China, originally, there was a big problem with piracy. So tons of movies would be pirated onto DVDs, and you could just buy them on the street or whatever. That's how people would watch movies and then, but theater going became much more of like a real experience, and especially for these bigger movies, and, um, censorship was always an issue. So very few movies, like a dozen movies a year, could come from outside of of China into China. I think it's been more relaxed. And also people are doing CO production, so they'll have some of it, some money, or some other thing come from China. And then it's like, kind of guaranteed that they can play in China. I think Iron Man three, three was like that. And, yeah, looper, um, and, but I remember one time I was watching one of the Harry Potter movies in China, because I didn't have time to go out of China to watch it. And it was weird, because, like, they would re edit it. I mean, I was reading this up, or No, I was listening to it in English, and there was Chinese subtitles. But I knew it was edited because there was the cut where I'm, like, this, something that makes sense. I mean, it literally was cut, like, mid sentence, um, and so, yeah, they were very limited on what could get in, and they would censor stuff. And I think, you know, something like Harry Potter, which has, like, you know, which is essentially, you know, they would censor more heavily. But, yeah, now it's, it's huge. Just there's, I think it's the second biggest, like box office, outside of the US, and so you'll, you're starting to see a lot more movies that can potentially do well there. I mean, there was movies, I think, like Star Wars doesn't do well there compared to the US. But then there's movies layout, like Warcraft, or, I imagine, like a Pacific Rim, or something like that. I think the ones that are more special effects that don't require, like, extensive knowledge of the. Of the background of the movie work quite well over there. I imagine DC movies probably do decently, but I haven't really looked and and because it's, it's a subtitled, you know, bad acting and stuff is harder to tell, like, if you watch a movie, a foreign movie, sometimes English. If they aren't great in their natural language, you can't really tell at all. Like, if I watch something you know, from Japan, I'm not gonna know. I mean, I can tell maybe if they're acting badly, but not based on what they're saying. And yeah. And so what you're starting to see now is movies that are designed with China in mind as a as a secondary market. So, for instance, there's this actor, Daniel Wu who, he was actually one of my co founders in when I was doing my alive, my dad, that is getting much bigger in the US. He got cast for he was in Warcraft. He's one of the voices, and I think that was partly why it did well in China. There was the one recently called Geostorm, which I think did very badly in the US, and actually did decently in China. And I think because they marketed as a Daniel Wu movie, and he's also one of the main leads in the new Tomb Raider movie. So you're gonna start seeing more of that, where they're specifically trying to cast or or make decisions with China in mind, like, not as a primary market, but as a very important secondary market.

Dave Bullis 36:34
Yeah, it is. And I think at some point, you know, because I think it's, it's right now, it's us China, than Japan is the third, no, and I think Great Britain is fourth. So I think at some point the first two are going to flip, and maybe even the third and the fourth, because Japan has a declining population and, you know, etc, etc, but, but I think, you know, it'll end up being, you know, that way, actually, though we didn't talk about India and India, my friend. I mean, that's, that's destined. I mean, Bollywood produces more movies. They've, you know, since we've been talking Patrick, Bollywood has made 100 movies.

Patrick Lee 37:08
I didn't know that, but I wouldn't be surprised,

Dave Bullis 37:12
Since we've been talking 100 movies. I guarantee it, no, but they produce more movies than anybody else, bar none. Then Hollywood, and then the third is Nollywood and but I think eventually, I think China, with all the productions, they're going to start catching up very, very rapidly. I saw somewhere that China is going to be spending like 6 trillion in the next couple years in infrastructure and everything else. So, you know, it's crazy, man, it is absolutely crazy. Yeah, another movie

Patrick Lee 37:38
I just remembered was transformers. I think transformers I think transformers is another movie that does pretty well in China. And I want to say they even, they definitely cast some, like, Chinese celebrities for, like, cameos and things like that. And I think one of their movies, one of the recent ones, was actually cast, or like, set in Hong Kong for at least part of the movie, yep. Uh huh, yeah. So that's a good example of one where they're looking very, very heavily at China, probably as much, or more than, than us.

Dave Bullis 38:09
Yeah, you know, it's kind of funny. I mean, I'm a huge, huge fan of Asian culture, by the way, especially China and Japan, and I liked how you differentiated between China and Hong Kong, because, because, you know, they because, because, literally, Hong Kong, up until 1999 or 2000 was under British rule. And then you had, you know, China slowly been, you know, trying to sort of say, Okay, we're, you know, you're a part of us, you know what I mean. And then you and you so I just, I caught that. I actually, no, I know exactly where you're coming from with that, because it is, you know, I've had friends who go over there, and they even say the same thing, like, you know, their their their parents were Chinese or Chinese. They came over here, were born in America, but they went back over and they always differentiate between, you know, China and Hong Kong. That's why I always wondered if transfer was going to be set in like Beijing or Sichuan or something like that. Would the Chinese government be okay with them destroying the whole city, but Hong Kong, you know, tightly packed, maybe a little more leeway, if you know what I mean.

Patrick Lee 39:15
I I think they would be open to doing stuff in China as well. And I think China would be open to it, too. But I imagine it's easier to get things done in Hong Kong. Because I think the Hong Kong film industry is pretty, you know, mature, and there's, I imagine it's, it's easier to get the things you need, like, you know, support staff for your film, you know, anything like that? Versus in China, I think it's, it's a lot younger and and also in Hong Kong, a lot of people speak English, so I imagine it's, it's much, much easier to film there than in China. Yeah,

Dave Bullis 39:55
I was actually going to ask you, do you speak Mandarin fully?

Patrick Lee 40:09
Conversationally. But I don't, and I don't speak Cantonese, okay?

Dave Bullis 40:13
So, well, I know because, because Cantonese is mainly in Hong Kong, right?

Patrick Lee 40:19
Yeah, and also Guangzhou, like the part of China close to Hong Kong.

Dave Bullis 40:24
Okay, yeah, I know. I know Mandarin was, is actually supposed to be, like the natural language. And I know I have friends who went over to to China to teach, like Peter Marvel has been on the podcast, and, you know, they, they've, they've had it start taking Mandarin classes to make sure there's a, you know, at least, so they can get around and stuff, but, but, you know, you know, Patrick, I know we, we've kind of gone over the time limit. I know you. You're extremely busy. So just in closing, Patrick, yo, is there anything we get a chance to talk about that maybe you want to talk about right now, or anything you want to say to put a period at the end of this whole conversation?

Patrick Lee 40:56
Um, let me think, I guess as far as Rotten Tomatoes goes for me, at least I'm just, I'm happy it's still around and it's going strong. I think actually, it makes a lot of sense for it to be with Fandango specifically, because, you know, one of the biggest things we always had was this, like, love, hate relationship with the studios. Yet we were dependent, like they were like half our revenue was came from advertising. So we are very dependent on the studios for to thrive. And something like Fandango, or like a Netflix is what I always thought, you know, made the most sense for like a rotten tomatoes, where the money that you make are from the people that you're serving the best, which is the users, like studios. You're helping them half the time, let's say, but users you help all the time, regardless of a movie's fresh or rot, and you're still helping them. You helping them. And so being able to generate the revenue from those users is has always been the, you know, best way of doing it, and we are running it. We're very small team. We're like seven people most of the time. We didn't have the ability at that time to go out and sell movie tickets or, you know, rent DVDs or rent videos, or stream videos, but it's always been kind of like the natural fit, in my opinion, getting users, getting the money directly from the people you're serving all the time. So that's, those are my main thoughts, you know. And also, for people who are looking at Rotten Tomatoes, you know, look at all the different types of ratings within Rotten Tomatoes. Look at the critics, tomato meter score as well as the average rating. Look at the users, tomato meter score as well as the average rating. And if you look at all four of those, you're going to have a pretty good idea of whether or not you know, it's the movie for you to see.

Dave Bullis 43:00
Oh, Patrick, one more question, where people find you out online?

Patrick Lee 43:03
I believe look me up at Rotten doubt so rotten from Rotten Tomatoes, doubt, D, O, U, B, T. I used to be a very big no doubt fan, so I just kind of merged the two together. And that's kind of the username I use for, like, Instagram, Twitter, everywhere

Dave Bullis 43:20
I see, I actually thought it was like a double entendre for the name, like, you know, like, you know, the movie's rotten and you're doubting. Like, you know what I mean, like, a rotten doubt, like, I doubt that's rotten, you know what I mean,

Patrick Lee 43:30
Yeah, well, that's the other thing I liked about it was this kind of, like a double negative.

Dave Bullis 43:37
So it was kind of like, yes, he got got me thinking. So it kind of it worked. Yeah, that uh. Patrick Lee, thank you so much for coming on, sir.

Patrick Lee 43:45
Yeah, thanks for having me, Dave.