Kristian Harloff: Studios Have Turned "Critic" Into a Dirty Word by Redefining Influencers

Critics have become a dirty word, and I think that is a problem studios created on purpose. If you like a critic's point of view and you like their taste in movies, you are reading or watching their work because it is influencing whether you go see a movie or skip it. By definition, that makes critics influencers too.

This matters for anyone who cares about how movies get covered and recommended, because the people who used to get first access to sets and productions are increasingly not the same people whose job is to give an honest take once the movie actually comes out.

Studios Have Redefined "Influencer" to Mean Positivity and Marketing

My argument is that studios have taken the word influencer and repurposed it to specifically mean the people who promote positivity and marketing around a film, rather than anyone whose coverage actually shapes opinion, which is what critics have always done. In effect, studios have carved out a separate category for people whose role is promotional rather than evaluative, and then handed that category the label that should arguably describe critics as well.

That distinction is not just semantic in my view. It changes who gets invited into the process early and who does not, based on whether a studio expects positive coverage or honest coverage.

Set Visits and Early Access Used to Go to Print and Video Critics

Before the rise of the TikTok generation, Instagram, and the influencer ecosystem as we know it now, the opportunities that influencers get first, like set visits and other early access, used to be given to print critics, video critics, and similar outlets. That access was part of how traditional film criticism operated for a long time.

Those opportunities have now been taken away from critics in a lot of cases, and I lay that shift squarely on a calculation studios have made about what benefits them more.

Studios Now Prefer "Grouchy" Critics Get Cut Out in Favor of Positive Influencers

As I put it, studios have essentially decided it is more beneficial to them to get the positive influencers out there to promote a movie than to take what I call the grouchy critic and put them in that same position, since that critic might not even like the movie once it actually comes out. In other words, the calculation is about controlling the narrative before release rather than risking honest reaction.

I think that trade off, swapping critics for guaranteed positive promotion, is going to upset people once they fully clock what has happened to access and coverage around movies.

Where do you land on this, are critics and influencers doing the same job or something fundamentally different?