Sex and the City 2: The Myth of the Critic-Proof Movie

Ah, Memorial Day Weekend. The unofficial start of summer has finally arrived and so to have the annual think pieces about the relevancy of film critics. If it feels like this is happening earlier here in 2010 than it did in 2009, that's because it is. The debate didn't start last year until Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen dropped a big turd on multiplexes -- it had a 20 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes -- yet still garnered $836 million worldwide from viewers. This year the party got started with Sex and the City 2, a film so roundly hated by film critics that it has drawn comparisons to feces, terrorism and rape. And yet for every negative review, it feels like another 100 tickets are sold. The conventional wisdom states that Sex and the City 2 is "critic-proof," but that implies that critics matter to a film's financial success. Spoiler: They don't.

This isn't another one of those "film critics are irrelevant" posts -- which are so played out by this point that they have become irrelevant -- this is simple logic. To wit: When has it ever been proven that film criticism matters to the success of a big-ticket release? Sex and the City 2 is just the latest on a long (long) list of critically reviled films that found box office nirvana. It won't be the first and it certainly won't be the last. Though it might be the only one set in Abu Dhabi.

Conversely, positive reviews don't bring people to blockbusters either. Does anyone actually believe Transformers would have grossed more with positive reviews? Did Star Trek hit $257 million domestically because critics went head over heels for it? Of course not. People pay to see these movies because they are events. No one predisposed to attending Sex and the City 2 decided against it because Rex Reed compared it to crap. Literally.

In fact, the fate of these blockbusters rests more in the hands of actual ticket buyers than anyone else -- well, once the marketing department has done their job. As The Hangover proved last summer -- and on a smaller scale, How to Train Your Dragon this spring -- positive word of mouth can either make a film or break it like no scathing review could ever hope. Isn't that right, Bruno?

The summer blockbuster season is a consumer driven time period. And consumers -- even those who take the time to research their products -- will inevitably wind up buying the product they feel speaks to them. (At least that's what Don Draper taught me.) That's why critics are marginalized when the temperatures rise; as Woody Allen said -- in a completely different context -- the heart wants what the heart wants. And, right now, it wants Cosmos and camel rides. Film criticism will always be relevant, just don't be foolish enough to think it affects the bottom line.