Trolls seem hellbent on driving those numbers down. They’re a relatively recent phenomenon, a loose organization of men dedicated to policing the culture. Having achieved success using social media to hound female gamers and journalists during the so-called Gamergate of the earlier 2010s, they moved on to politics and now cinema.
The attacks have gotten so bad that Rotten Tomatoes took the step last week of prohibiting user reviews before a movie’s release, an attempt to prevent trolls from torpedoing a film. (Actual film critics have responded favorably to “Captain Marvel”: It currently has an 83 percent rating on the site and is “certified fresh.)
Disney has plenty of experience dealing with the onslaught. Executives and strategists try to keep their tactics under the radar, and Disney declined to provide an executive to comment on its tactics. But the studio’s answer to the online hate is there for all to see on the internet.
Last year, trolls zeroed in on “Black Panther” and its groundbreaking African-American cast.
Facebook groups tried to target the Rotten Tomatoes scores of the movie, posting negative comments to depress the online index that some moviegoers use to gauge whether the film is worth seeing. Facebook took the pages down, while Twitter tackled fake reports of racially motivated violence at screenings. The movie went on to become the highest-grossing superhero movie ever screened in U.S. and Canadian theaters.
Some digital-marketing specialists recommend leaving it to the fans of the movies to correct any negative discourse, rather than having the companies intervene.
But studios have made countering online barrages a priority. In 2019, digital ad spending in the entertainment industry will be an estimated $6.64 billion, up from $3.45 billion in 2016, according to researcher EMarketer. Spending on digital has risen from a maximum of 10 percent of the overall marketing budget to, in some cases, half the funds for a movie campaign, Pertschuk said. Likewise,
the number of teams at the major Hollywood studios dedicated to countering online trolling has swollen from just a handful to as many as 40, said Marc Karzen, lead strategist at RelishMix, which tracks online activity and advises studios on tactics. “The studios are much more experienced in dealing with these wildfires that spike up,” Karzen said. “
If the movie is great, you have to stick to your guns.”