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Critic-Proof

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Here comes the money... here comes the money!note 

"This is just how the film industry works nowadays; critics give bad opinions, the public usually has a differing opinion, and all is well in the world of Hollywood since the studios made their millions anyway."

Sometimes a movie, book, game, TV show, or song is released, and the critics hate it. They just hate it. Entire forests are destroyed printing scathing reviews that dissect such media down to the bone, showing in every possible way that the general public should stay away in droves, and even go as far as to place it on "Worst [X] of All Time" lists just to show everyone how much they hate it. But, no matter how bad they are... no matter how many bad reviews they receive, the public loves it. The movie becomes a blockbuster. The book sits atop the New York Times best-seller list. The game flies off the shelves and becomes a must-have. The show is weekly appointment viewing. The song is on everyone's iPod...

The reasons for this phenomenon are myriad and diverse. Critics are people who watch movies/read books/etc. for a living, on average they consume far more media than the average person. They tend to gravitate towards works that are innovative and experimental, being different makes a work stand out more than the average blockbuster/bestseller. They also have to write about works, which means breaking down themes and metaphors, putting far more thought into a work than the average person would even think of doing. This means that an obscure art film tends to excite them far more than some generic action movie.

Critics are often not fans of the source material being adapted (if any), so they look upon things from a layman perspective. Some dislike the style and humor, preferring more 'sophisticated' works. Sometimes the fans are so hardcore that they'd accept anything from the source, and sometimes, it's made to be fun. In fact, many who see/buy the work may not even think the best of it either, but it's familiar enough that it manages to stand out and market itself. Sometimes it's simply become popular through being So Bad, It's Good, or by fans acknowledging the work's flaws but considering them insignificant. There’s also a Vocal Minority who will reject any review and criticism, no matter how legitimate, out of sheer stubbornness.

Other times, critics (being human, and therefore imperfect), let their biases and misunderstandings of creator's intent cloud the final review, portraying the work as objectively low quality. Critics don't always "get" the work the same ways the audience does. There are also some critics who will reject a work simply because it’s popular or not True Art. At worst, critics will only pay attention to works that pander to their tastes.

More cynically, sometimes everyone, fans and critics alike, know the product is a stinker, but heavy prerelease hype and no small amount of Polish the Turd can put the project in the black long before word gets out. In these cases, usually, the first installment ends up like this but the second takes a dive — if it's even made, as studios may realize that you won't fool them twice.

When no critic in the world can affect a work's popularity, it is Critic-Proof. And even then, some might assume the critics do their jobs as a Failure Gambit. Also remember that there is No Such Thing as Bad Publicity; a critic's harsh review of a work can actually encourage people to consume said work rather than keep them away.

Compare Critical Backlash, It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars, Critical Dissonance, and He Panned It, Now He Sucks!. Contrast with Oscar Bait, Acclaimed Flop, Confirmation Bias, Reviews Are the Gospel and Guilty Pleasure. Not to be confused with Protection from Editors. One possible cause of Presumed Flop.

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples shouldn't be added until one month after release for standalone works, one month after end of the relevant season for episodic works with seasons, or four months after release for episodic works without seasons. This is to avoid any knee-jerk reactions and allow time for reviews to fully impact public reception.


Examples

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    Anime and Manga 
  • The anime adaptation of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest was panned by those who hadn't already read the source material as a nonsensical, edgy mess, and by readers of the original novels as a piss-poor adaptation; it was quickly disowned by the author of the original novels who said that reading the storyboards he was sent caused him physical pain. Despite this, the anime still managed to boost the sales of the books enough that a second season was announced.
  • The anime of Diabolik Lovers drew negative reactions from Japanese and Western viewers alike, but was evidently successful at drawing fans to the other branches of the franchise (like the visual novels) since a sequel anime series was also produced. It even had enough momentum going for Sentai Filmworks to release an English dub.
  • Eiken is widely considered one of the worst ecchi series of all time and has been bashed for its dumb plot/characters and ugly art. Both the manga and anime however allegedly sold very well, and fanart of the franchise is not uncommon.
  • Haruhi Suzumiya:
    • The much-reviled Endless Eight episodes of the second season were released across four DVDs in Japan. Given that said arc consisted of the same episode eight times in a row, it's surprising that the first DVDs sold (relatively) well. Though the later ones to a lesser extent; the second and third sold only half the amount the first one did.
    • On the other hand, the North American licensors of Season 2 knew very well that they would not be Critic Proof (plenty of fans had already vowed a boycott due to the extreme unpopularity of Endless Eight), and simply released all 14 episodes in a single set.
  • The anime adaptation of KanColle has been panned by fans and reviewers as mediocre and having a wildly inconsistent tone, but sales figures indicate Studio Diomedea isn't going to be hurt in the slightest.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny is very popular among the Japanese audiences and even won the Anime Grand Prix award for Most Popular Anime in 2004 and 2005. Western reviewers liked the series but not as much as its prequel. However, if you ever ask this to a Gundam fan prepare to hear how this series is one of the worst things Sunrise ever created.
  • Pokémon: The Series: Despite not having any international theatrical releases since the Johto era (the live-action Pokémon Detective Pikachu notwithstanding), in Japan, the twelfth film, Arceus and the Jewel of Life, has become the highest-grossing anime film of 2009. People complain about the anime itself. Although it has lost some popularity, it's still extremely popular.
    • The Rotten Tomatoes critical score for Pokémon: The First Movie is a very low 17%, and states that "Audiences other than children will find very little to entertain them". However, since it came out in the franchise's peak in popularity, the film was a huge financial success. Many schools admitted that hundreds of their students called in sick on opening week to see the movie, and the film is remembered somewhat fondly by the fandom. Also, most of the criticisms stem from the dumbed-down 4Kids Entertainment dub; the original Japanese movie was well-received.
  • SHUFFLE! got panned by review sites as just another annoying harem show, and even when it was first licensed, the overwhelming opinion was that Funimation must like losing money, because nobody would buy it. The DVD sales in North America were a surprising success, to the point that Funi produced a collector's box with the final volume.
  • Sword Art Online: Reviewers feel that the anime is anywhere from bad to mediocre, at best, but not a great show. It was the most popular anime of 2012. A second season premiered in summer 2014, retaining its popularity. In addition, other works from the Sword Art Online franchise began to make it overseas in that same year: a PS Vita game called Hollow Fragment got an English release around the same time, and Yen Press began to publish English translations of the light novels beginning April 2014.
  • The Tsugumomo manga has always been bashed by critics who have considered it a cheaply-made series with a plot that is little more than a paper-thin ecchi vehicle, but those same ecchi elements made it popular enough with fans to sell many volumes of the manga and spawn two profitable anime series.
  • One Room is critically reviled for its Pandering to the Base, but the show's openness about being blatant Wish-Fulfillment for lonely Japanese men made the originally unremarkable short anime popular enough to get merchandise lines and two successful sequels.
  • ONIMAI: I'm Now Your Sister! was torn apart from western critics and audiences for its unorthodox premise and elements, but became the best selling and top rated anime of its respective anime season in Japan.
  • Critics were generally disgusted with Redo of Healer, viewing it as little more than a shock-value revenge porn series (both figuratively and literally) that violated the boundaries of good taste and negatively compared it to The Rising of the Shield Hero, another series that had started off with a poor critical reception but managed to win back some respect as it went on. Anime viewers, however, made Redo one of the most-watched and talked about shows of 2021, though largely for the same reason as critics.

    Comic Books 
  • Brian Bendis and Mark Millar are two comic writers who've earned vocal detractors among certain fans, and yet their mainstream work for Marvel almost always sells huge amounts. Despite all the hate and controversy it garnered, Bendis' New Avengers was one of the best-selling iterations of the Avengers franchise in years. Ditto for Millar's The Ultimates, which is hated by many fans and critics but was still one of the biggest sellers Marvel put out at the time.
  • Jommeke is among the best-selling Flemish comic strips of all time, but has hardly had any serious critical attention or praise, mostly because it's a pure formulaic children's comic. Author Jef Nys was interviewed just a few times throughout his career and only received exhibitions, awards and a biography in the final decade of his life.
  • Spider-Man has been featured a lot of bad stories in recent years. The Clone Saga was universally reviled, One More Day was crucified by critics and fans alike, and Spider-Man: Chapter One is one of those stories even Marvel has insisted they never speak of again. Despite it all, Spidey still remains Marvel's mascot and biggest cash cow, something that likely won't change anytime soon.
  • Batman comics have a large chunk of fans for whom him and Bat-family books are the only DC books (if not the only comics altogether) they will follow. Consequently, as Evan Dworkin noted, even the biggest Audience-Alienating Era is unlikely to force the title book to stray far from the top 10 charts.

     Fan Works 
  • The Sims 4 fan webcomic Little May's Vampire was infamous and bashed for its Wife Husbandry plotline of Caleb Vatore raising and eventually dating the titular character. However, it still receives significant number of fans, and the comic hasn't been removed from DeviantArt since.

    Films — Animated 
  • It seems like nothing can dent the fanbase of the Alpha and Omega films — critics dismissed them as mediocre, general animation fans dismissed them as mediocre, and wider audiences dismissed them as mediocre. However, the fanbase of the films is composed mostly of wolf lovers and furries. Given the undiscerning taste of both groups, it should probably come as little surprise that the series has seven (Direct to Video) sequels.
  • Cars 2 is Pixar's worst-reviewed animated film (sitting at an even 40% at Rotten Tomatoes), but that hasn't stopped the film from making huge bucks at the box office (though it was Pixar's lowest-grossing movie at the box office until The Good Dinosaur came along). The Cars franchise managed to make a whopping ten billion dollars in merchandise, although they're not as liked as other Pixar works. Despite Disneytoon Studios' Spin-Off Planes being derided as a Merchandise-Driven cash grab by critics and audiences alike, it made back its budget more than four times over and got a sequel.
  • Although Chicken Little is disliked by a large portion of Disney fans, with a 36% rating on RT, it managed to become a modest success at the box office. On the other hand, Chicken Little didn't become a franchise like Cars did (excluding a cameo of the title character in Kingdom Hearts II).
  • Doug's 1st Movie was hated by critics for looking like a direct-to-video film, but did okay at the box office despite this. With that said, the studios clearly didn't think a sequel would be worth the risk, as Doug's first movie was also his last.
  • The Emoji Movie: Hard to believe given all of the bile it received from critics and the internet (including This Very Wiki), but the film was a box office hit, making $217 million worldwide on a $50 million budget.
  • Free Birds was torn apart by critics, but ended up being the worst reviewed animated movie to be a box-office success until The Emoji Movie came 4 years later.
  • The original Ice Age movie was well-received, but most agree it suffered Sequelitis each passing installment. In contrast, every new movie made more money than the last... until the critically-thrashed Collision Course came around, although that film still ended up grossing $408.5 million worldwide (which is more than the original) thanks to the international market.
  • This tends to be the case with nearly all Illumination Entertainment movies, with critics repeatedly rating them as being muddled or mediocre, with nothing exceptional in terms of story, morals, or characters, but nonetheless bringing in massive box office dollars.
    • Minions was considered a pretty mediocre installment of the Despicable Me franchise by critics with only a 56% rating on RT. The box office on the other hand...
    • Critics were lukewarm towards Despicable Me 3, feeling the franchise had run its course and had little to add except the same old slapstick and jokes, and was clearly made just to appeal to small children. Nonetheless, the film was massively successful, grossing over one billion at the box office, making it the franchise's second most successful installment as well as one of the highest grossing animated films ever.
    • Both Dr. Seuss adaptations, The Lorax (2012) and The Grinch (2018), received tepid reviews from critics, complaining in both cases that stretching a short and sweet children's picture book into a feature-length movie bloated the story while adding nothing of actual worth, but audiences were more entertained, and both films grossed several times their budgets.
    • The Super Mario Bros. Movie received middling reviews from critics, who mostly considered it unexceptional and simplistic with little substance outside of references to the video games it's based on. As expected from its connection to a massively popular series, though, it was an absolute smash hit, raking in nearly $400 million in its first weekend alone, giving it the biggest opening weekend gross of any animated movie ever; it has since displaced the original Minions as Illumination's highest-grossing film, raking in well over a billion dollars worldwide.
  • The Jungle Book 2 was one of the worst Disney sequels as it replays a lot of the same scenes and character exchanges from the first film, especially considering there were plenty other elements of the novels' mythos or even just the original film that they could have expanded on. However, in spite of receiving a 18% on the Tomatometer, it still became a box office success just like the original film.
  • The remake of The Lion King was widely perceived as unnecessary and misguided even compared with Disney's other attempts, and indeed reviewers and American audiences were not positive about telling the same story again only with new graphics. Audiences in China and Europe still made it a billion dollar behemoth.
  • Critics and audiences considered the first The Nut Job to be mediocre at best with a Tomatometer of just 13%. Regardless, it went on to become a financial success anyway.
  • SCOOB! got very mixed reviews from critics. That didn't stop it from being #1 in VOD sales for 3 weeks straight, though.
  • Shark Tale ended up being the worst reviewed Dreamworks movie of all time, but ended up as a box office success. However, it wasn't enough to turn the film into a franchise.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • French critics generally despised most of the films Jean-Paul Belmondo played in in The '70s and The '80s (mostly action comedies and maverick cop films) and preferred his French New Wave vehicles. The man still attracted big crowds nationally on his name alone. Critics actually ganged up against him in 1982 for Ace of Aces (which was a big box office success) as a very acclaimed film, Jacques Demy's A Room in Town (Une Chambre en Ville), came out at the same time and flopped. 23 critics published an article in Telerama magazine in which they panned Ace of Aces, accusing it of being "engineered for success" and of "stealing tickets" to A Room in Town. Belmondo answered to them that he didn't accuse James Bond of stealing his movie tickets when Stavisky underperformed against The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974.
  • Little Indian, Big City was critically lambasted both in France and abroad (Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel roasted it). That didn't prevent it from being the second biggest grosser at the 1994 French box office (7.87 million cinema admissions) behind only The Lion King (10 million). Ebert bizarrely and infamously attributed its success to "French unemployment rates" at the time.
  • Michael Bay films are like this:
    • Armageddon (1998) was internationally the highest-grossing film of 1998 against a backdrop of mediocre-to-frosty reviews from critics, though it seems largely forgotten now.
    • Bad Boys II, which Bay directed four years before Transformers (2007), actually used all the same conventions. Critics hated it while the audience ate it up.
    • Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is currently the worst-reviewed movie ever to earn $400 million at the U.S. box office. And it actually made over $800 million worldwide, the first movie of 2009 to do so (even beating at least one of The Dark Knight's records), so it will take some beating. It also won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture, becoming the highest-grossing movie to ever win the award.
    • Transformers: Dark of the Moon (which got better reviews than Revenge of the Fallen, but still extremely negative nonetheless) grossed over a billion dollars worldwide and was the fifth-highest-grossing movie ever until 2013.
    • Transformers: Age of Extinction got the worst reviews of any installment in the Transformers Film Series, but it was 2014's only film with a ten-digit gross worldwide.
  • Pauly Shore did a trio of movies for Disney: Encino Man, Son in Law, and In The Army Now. All were critically savaged, with none breaking 25% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but in total they made about $110 million gross.
  • The only entry in the Scary Movie series to not get overall negative reviews was the first one. This didn't keep the others from making money, albeit not as much as the first.
  • The Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, especially Dead Men Tell No Tales, were lukewarmly received by critics but they made even more money than the significantly better-reviewed Curse of the Black Pearl.
  • Rambo: First Blood Part II was savaged by critics, but made triple its budget domestically and triple that internationally; Rambo III was only slightly better reviewed and didn't do so well domestically, but still did pretty well internationally.
  • Rocky IV was panned by critics upon its release and got about 9 Razzie nominations, including "Worst Picture", yet that didn't prevent it from making over $300 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing Rocky film of all time. In other words, the critics' demands for people to avoid the movie at all costs backfired spectacularly.
  • Happy Madison Productions have many cases - says something that the company's only Fresh releases on Rotten Tomatoes, Reign Over Me and Funny People, are among their least profitable. Even Pixels, Happy Madison's last theatrical release, still made back its budget and then some internationally. The only straightforward comedy from founder Adam Sandler to outright tank is That's My Boy.
  • The live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movies (the latter three in particular) have received nothing but hate from most critics. That hasn't stopped either from being huge successes... at least until the last one was scheduled for the same release date as The Force Awakens.
  • The Twilight films were regularly ravaged by critics, with Roger Ebert's reaction to New Moon being a commonly cited example. The series' highest Rotten Tomatoes rating was the 49% received by Eclipse. This didn't stop the films from being unusually consistent box office hits - all four sequels grossed between $280-$300 million domestically and ranked in the top ten films of the year.
  • Many of Tyler Perry's movies, though not considered awful, are usually not liked by critics. His movies do extremely well with African Americans, though.
  • Critic James Berardinelli used the trope name regarding AVP: Alien vs. Predator, as the mere concept of two beloved cinematic monsters fighting for the first time will draw in audiences regardless of the film's quality.
  • GI Joe The Rise Of Cobra: Mostly for being purposeful Ham and Cheese, with prestigious actors such as Christopher Eccleston and Joseph Gordon-Levitt realizing just how cheesy it was and deciding to eat all the scenery in sight.
  • Kevin Smith tried to invoke this with Jersey Girl by saying it "wasn't for critics". It didn't work so well. Then Penny Arcade tried to parody it by coming up with absurdist nonsense perpetrators Twisp and Catsby, and taunting all the critics who couldn't criticize them because it wasn't for them. This backfired on Penny Arcade as well when Twisp and Catsby instead became insanely popular.
  • Jurassic Park:
    • Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom received the worst Rotten Tomatoes score of any film in the franchise at the time, and overall middling reviews from critics and audiences alike, with general agreements that the series had run its course, but that didn't stop the movie from grossing over $1.3 billion worldwide.
    • Jurassic World Dominion received even worse critical reviews than Fallen Kingdom on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and lukewarm reception from general audiences, but it nonetheless opened to a half-billion dollar box office gross in its opening weekend. It would also eventually go on to gross a billion dollars, being only the third movie released during the COVID-19 Pandemic to do so after Spider-Man: No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick, both of which were much better-received.
  • The mostly negative critical reviews for The Hangover Part II didn't keep it from being hugely successful at the box office, largely due to goodwill from the critically-acclaimed original. However, Part III (which received even worse reviews), while still a box office success, faced a large drop-off from the second movie, making about $200 million dollars less than Part II had two years prior.
  • All of Seltzer and Friedberg's movies have had overwhelmingly negative reviews, yet they still manage to more than make back their budget (except Disaster Movie). Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans both debuted at #1 at the box office on their opening weekends and Vampires Suck at #2. All of their movies also have fairly low budgets, so really, no matter how bad their movies get, there will be enough people going to see them to make back their budgets several times over. This has eventually waned as The Starving Games didn't recoup its budget and their more recent films have had only a limited theatrical release before going to home media.
  • The James Bond films have had some poorly-reviewed entries over the years (with many of Roger Moore's films falling into that category by his own admission) that were nevertheless box office hits. Moonraker is widely regarded as one of the weakest Bond films, but it became the highest-grossing film in the franchise until GoldenEye was released. Similarly, Octopussy and A View to a Kill have gotten negative assessments from critics and audiences, but each still made more than $150 million at the box office, putting them in the top 10 highest-grossing movies of their respective release years.
  • Street Fighter: The Movie: The scathing reviews it got from critics didn't stop it from becoming one of the highest-grossing movies of 1994.
  • The Phantom Menace is the third-highest-grossing film in the Star Wars franchise, adjusted for inflation, despite polarized reception. The same can be said for Attack of the Clones and The Rise of Skywalker: most critics liked Clones only modestly, and Rise became the lowest rated movie in the main series on Rotten Tomatoes, but fans still turned out in droves to see them.
  • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull grossed $101 million in its first weekend, the third-widest opener of all time, despite highly polarized reviews (Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin liked it, most other big-name critics did not).
  • God's Not Dead, a Christian propaganda film chronicling a devoutly Christian college freshman's bout with a snide atheist professor, was pummeled by secular and Christian movie critics alike. Yet it grossed more than $60 million in the U.S., which is both very rare for a propaganda film (of any kind) and actually pretty remarkable given the film's shoestring budget of two million dollars.
  • DC Extended Universe:
    • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice combines this with Presumed Flop. It did underperform relative to expectations, but it still grossed $870 million worldwide and handily made its money back. It was one of the most successful films of its year; it is mainly remembered as doing poorly because it also suffered a precipitous second-weekend drop when most speculation was that the film would easily crack a billion.
    • Suicide Squad was critically trashed but managed to churn out profits, grossing $746 million worldwide compared to a $175 million budget.
  • Assassin's Creed (2016) generally received bad reviews. One of the most positive called it "the best video game movie ever" and acknowledged that this was a backhanded compliment. Yet it made 60.5 million more than its budget of $125 million within a month, despite opening within a week of Rogue One.
  • The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. All three films were heavily panned by the critics and given very low scores on popular websites like Rotten Tomatoes. However, this hasn't stopped each film from being a huge financial success.
  • The 2013 Metro Manila Film Festival entry My Little Bossings was lambasted by critics as a cynical, in-your-face example of extreme Product Placement in a family film. Yet audiences didn't seem to care and it made ₱375.9 million (US$7.4 million) at the local box office. And it didn't deter lead actor Vic Sotto from releasing a sequel either.
  • Movie 43 is considered to be one of the worst films of 2013, if not of all time. However, it managed to make $32.4 million out of a $6 million budget. That didn't stop it from becoming Rogue Pictures' last release for a few years, though.
  • Many horror films are this, because they have a poor reputation among critics and they tend to have meager budgets compared to other genres. Even the most critically lambasted movies that only manage to rack up gross in the lower double-digit millions can still be considered successes, because their budgets are in the range of single-digit millions.
    • The Grudge was poorly received by critics and audience alike, but made over $180 million against a $10 million budget. The remake, The Grudge (2020), also got negative reviews from critics and even worse reviews from audiences (including an extremely rare "F" rating from CinemaScore), but it still made back more than triple its budget.
    • None of the Saw instalments after the first three films and Saw X received much praise from critics, many of whom regard the franchise as mindless Torture Porn. They still made millions of dollar profits regardless.
    • The entire Friday the 13th series has continuously gotten terrible reviews from critics, with only the first film having a "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but even then only barely and mostly in retrospect. Nonetheless, every film has been very profitable, usually making back their budgets several times over, although much of that has to do with their minuscule budgets. Jason Voorhees has also become a pop culture icon and raked in many hundreds of millions in merchandising and tie-in media in spite of the general reception of his films.
    • The Devil Inside grossed $33 million in its opening weekend in spite of universal scorn regarding its No Ending. Yet precisely because of this, it didn't make much afterward: those weekend numbers ended up forming more than half of its domestic gross.
    • The last three entries of Paranormal Activity are universally disliked by most critics and audience, but their nature as Found Footage films ensures that No Budget always applies and profits are guaranteed (The Ghost Dimension, the one film considered a disappointment, still generated gross seven times its budget not counting marketing, which shows you how low-cost the franchise is).
    • Ouija is a formulaic horror movie and disliked by virtually everyone, but grossed over twenty times its budget.
    • Annabelle, The Nun, and The Curse of La Llorona are less-welcomed entries in The Conjuring Universe. That didn't stop them from raking up as much money as other films in the franchise that did earn praise.
    • The American remake of One Missed Call got universally horrendous reviews from critics (including a rare 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes from 81 reviews, making it the second-worst reviewed film on the site) and audiences alike, but nonetheless made back more than twice its budget, making it a moderate financial success. Nonetheless, it provided to be the final nail in the coffin for the fledging trend of J-horror remakes of the time.
    • Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) got largely negative reviews from critics and audiences not familiar with the source material, but as expected by being based on a popular and successful video game franchise, Die-hard fans were much more positive and it had the best opening weekend of any film by Blumhouse Productions, in spite of also releasing simultaneously on Peacock to boot, and had the second-best opening weekend domestic gross ever (only slightly behind Black Widow (2021)).
  • Venom was mostly trashed by critics but earned over $850 million worldwide, making nearly twice what it needed to break even and breaking several October box office records. The film had a massive case of Critical Dissonance; its audience rating in Rotten Tomatoes is a solid 80%, with many considering that it is a fun, if not necessarily glowing, popcorn flick. The film was also supported by its overseas gross, particularly from China.
  • Batman & Robin is one of the most mocked movies ever made, even suffering from Creator Backlash, but it did gross $238.2 million (although its high budget made it not very profitable).
  • A Star Is Born (1976) received mixed to terrible reviews from critics upon its original release. For starters, critics thought the casting of Barbra Streisand as a rock star was ridiculous. Even today the movie has a 36 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating. Nevertheless, it was the second highest-grossing film of 1976, and the signature tune from the movie, "Evergreen," won the Oscar for Best Song.
  • Space Jam was pilloried by critics as a cynical cash-grab for being based on a marketing campaign for Nike sneakers. However, the film was based on a very popular ad campaign that helped revive the popularity of the Looney Tunes characters in The '90s, and starring superstar basketball player at the time Michael Jordan As Himself playing a larger-than-life game of hoops. As a result, it was a box-office hit.
  • Mission: Impossible II received middling reviews from critics and is considered by fans to be worst movie in the franchise, but it still managed to gross $546.4 million and was the highest-grossing movie of 2000.
  • Sleeping with the Enemy was primarily negatively received by most critics, who criticized the film for shifting to slasher cliches and turning a possessive husband into an evil psycho. That didn't stop the film from making over $100 million domestically and ending Home Alone top spot at the box office, largely due to Julia Roberts' presence.
  • The yuppie crime thriller Firewall staring Harrison Ford and Paul Bettany as the good guy and bad guy was largely bashed by critics as an unoriginal action/crime film with a too-much rehashed concept, with some audiences feeling the same way. While it wasn't a success due to it's unusually high budget, it still made $44 million domestically, a fair amount for the genre.

    Food 
  • Food connoisseurs think well-done steaks are a waste of quality meat. Plenty of diners won’t eat their steaks any other way.
  • Drenching food in condiments like ketchup or soy sauce is considered extremely bad form by both chefs and food critics alike because the natural flavor of the dish will no longer be detectable. Many people simply prefer the taste of the condiments to that of the food.
  • McDonald's is widely viewed as the purest example of unhealthy, cheap, nutrition-devoid fast food and considered the low bar for restaurants in America. Despite the general scorn from food critics, connoisseurs, and healthy eating advocates, the chain sells millions of meals and dozens of new restaurants open every month around the world.

    Literature 
  • The Left Behind series. The books are generally poorly written, and there have been many articles written that give specific examples of just how stupidly the characters act. Even from the perspective of Evangelical Protestant Christianity, the theology behind it is suspect. Yet the target audience strongly believes in the books' message and likes them anyway.
  • Dan Brown's books are lambasted for his clunky writing style and poorly researched material, yet he regularly sells millions of copies.
  • The same could be said of Jeffrey Archer.
  • The various books in The Twilight Saga:
    • Twilight might cross over into So Bad, It's Good territory; many who really do hate the writing style read it as a Guilty Pleasure, and there are all the people who plow through it just so they can bash it without being accused of complaining about books they haven't read.
    • Breaking Dawn. Despite the frequent hate you see, the earlier books got some decent reviews when they were released, it was later that the group of detractors grew as large as it did. Breaking Dawn, however, was actively disliked by many fans of the series, and still sold incredibly well.
  • A fictional version, from Ben Bova's Cyberbooks: at a meeting in a publishing house, the staff discuss the latest "Sheldon Stoker" manuscript and judge it to be complete rubbish, but a guaranteed bestseller. They recommend, "Hold our noses and buy it."
  • Bestselling author of the Mike Hammer series Mickey Spillane can't be harmed by critics. He also admits that he's Only in It for the Money:
    I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends.
    Inspiration is an empty bank account.note 
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was originally panned by critics, who found the story hard to follow and preposterous, but it was positively adored by its readers. It would eventually become one of the most influential and popular novels of all time.
  • Many critics panned Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, including Whittaker Chambers of the National Journal, who said in a review of the book that "from every page, I could hear the book screaming, 'to a gas chamber, go!'" Notwithstanding critics' dislike of the book, it still continues to sell tens of thousands of copies every year, unusual since the book was first published in 1957, and has been continuously in print ever since.
  • The Berenstain Bears has been attacked by critics left-and-right since its early days who've accused the series of being formulaic and saccharine, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming one of the most beloved children's book series of all time. An attempt to break this status backfired spectacularly when Hanna Rosin of Slate wrote a negative article about the series following Jan Berenstain's death (even going as far as to say "good riddance"), only for readers to angrily call her out on the "too soon" status of the article and insensitive tone she took, of which she subsequently apologized for.
  • Despite being generally negatively regarded by critics, Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels had sold 125 million copies worldwide by the middle of 2015 and the first book is one of the fastest selling paperbacks in the UK ever; likewise, the first film made $571 million at the box office (against a budget of $40 million) and is the fourth-highest grossing romance film of all time.
  • The 365 Days trilogy (which was partly inspired by Fifty Shades of Grey) has received much criticism for its writing style, and for portraying kidnapping and sexual violence in a romantic or glamorized manner, yet they still sold well enough to become international bestsellers and received movie adaptations.
  • In Another World with My Smartphone is viewed by many as one of, if not the worst, isekai series of all time thanks to its generic setting, overpowered protagonist and harem of bland love interests, and a plot that not only has no meaningful conflict, but seemingly goes out of its way to destroy any possible tension or threat to its heroes as often as it can. The anime adaptation has received similar criticisms, as well as for its middling production values. Despite all the critical panning, the light novels show no sign of slowing down, having reached over 20 volumes and being popular enough to be licensed in English, and the anime adaptation made back more than enough money to receive a second season years after the first season aired.
  • The Irregular at Magic High School has been frequently criticized for its Invincible Heroes, Incest Subtext, and heavy use of controversial nationalist talking points (for example, turning America and China, the two largest export markets for Japanese media, into Strawman Political villains), to the point that even the first editor of the light novels themselves thought they weren't worth publishing. Nonetheless, the books became one of Dengeki Bunko's biggest hits, second only to juggernauts like Sword Art Online, and the anime adaptation only increased its visibility even more. The second anime season was mocked as soon as it was announced for its Sequel Gap and seeming irrelevance to anime and light novel trends in The New '20s, but managed to get just as many, if not more, viewers as the previous season.

    Live-Action TV 
  • TV Guide had a review disparaging a Goosebumps (1995) special. Kids watched it anyway.
  • The Lawrence Welk Show was attacked as early as its 1950s debut by satirists and critics who even then accused it of being sappy, old-fashioned, un-hip, or downright reactionary. Despite a predominately middle-aged and elderly audience, and despite clinging stubbornly to musical styles that were rapidly falling out-of-fashion, it ran in various incarnations from 1955 until 1982, and has been more-or-less continuously appearing on TV in reruns ever since. Over sixty years after its debut, you can still catch episodes every weekend on many PBS stations throughout the US, while most of its younger and hipper competitors have long-since left the airwaves.
  • Oz never got the kind of acclaim that other HBO shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire did. Nevertheless, it had (has) one of the staunchest fan bases and was one of the network's highest-rated shows.
  • True Blood became increasingly derided in its later seasons but that didn't seem to make a dent in the ratings.
  • Critics were largely dismissive of Stargate Atlantis, regarding it as a pale imitation of Stargate SG-1. Nevertheless, it was an excellent ratings performer for Sci-Fi Channel.
  • My Family was slaughtered by critics, and the stars outright refused to film one episode because it was so bad. Yet it was one of the UK's top-rated sitcoms and aired over ten series.
  • The Secret Life of the American Teenager largely got mixed to negative reviews from critics decrying the series as feeling like a melodramatic after-school special. It still received the highest premiere viewership ratings ever for an ABC Family original program, getting five seasons (with 121 episodes in total) and served as a Star-Making Role for Shailene Woodley.
  • Two and a Half Men. Despite getting largely mixed reviews and critics expressing disgust at the often sexist humor and unlikable characters, it still had a following substantial enough to earn it twelve seasons (262 episodes in total).
  • Almost anything on the Belgian television network VTM could qualify. Critics despise the network due to it being the first commercial Belgian network, which allows room for more commercial fare that critics just will absolutely hate (such as Wedden, dat...?, Walters Verjaardagsshow, Rad van Fortuin, Blind Date, Bompa, Nonkel Jef etc.) with only the rare TV show on it (such as Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Ons geluk and The Raf and Ronny Show) being exempt from this fate and blame it for making society dumber due to the fact that they permanently give shows on there low ratings, but the network was so successful that Medialaan, the creator of that network, started publishing four more networks in Belgium in addition to that one.
  • Every trash television show, from The Morton Downey Jr. Show to The Jerry Springer Show has been condemned by critics as 'the absolute worst in TV entertainment', but they always had high ratings.
  • Big Brother is a reality TV series condemned by almost all TV critics worldwide in all countries, yet had some of the highest viewerships of all time.
  • My Kitchen Rules is a very huge target of mockery; almost every recap articles of the episode would contain not-so-subtle insults regarding the contestants' fake personalities and their cooking skills. Even on its own FB fan page, a lot of viewers would spew their hate for the show's exaggerated drama and the painfully obvious fake dialogue, giving the show the nickname "My Kitchen Rigged". The show itself has consistently placed as #1 in terms of viewing figures in Australia.
  • Jessie on Disney Channel. There is hardly a review published that didn't call this one of the worst TV shows out there, to the point where sites that don't even normally review TV shows (like sports news site Deadspin and humor site Cracked) would join in just to point out how awful this show was. Yet it was one of the most watched and most renewed show on Disney Channel when it ran.
  • Every Witch Way on Nickelodeon likewise got huge episode orders and enough viewership to justify a spin-off despite nearly every critic who screened it claiming it was almost unwatchable.
  • In spite of the criticism Dude, What Would Happen? got, it somehow lasted for 2 years. The same goes for Destroy Build Destroy, but was received a little better than the former due to it having Andrew W.K..
  • Thuis is one of the most hated soap operas in Flanders with critics and people alike, but it keeps getting the award for "highest number of viewers" on Vlaamse Televisie Sterren.
  • In-Universe, the Show Within a Show When the Whistle Blows from Extras makes Andy Millman rich, famous, and loved by his millions of fans, but the critics absolutely loathe it, and increasingly, so does Andy, who would rather have critical acclaim than popularity with audiences.
  • Keeping Up with the Kardashians has been received very negatively by critics and IMDb users (it has a 2.8/10 on the site) alike, but according to Wikipedia, it has attracted high viewership ratings and won several audience awards, and is one of E!'s most successful shows.
  • The Price Is Right premiered in 1956 to universal critical lashing, equating it to the end of civilization as we know it. 65 years hence, critics still can't touch it.
  • 13 Reasons Why received positive critical reception for its first season but seasons 2 and 3 were both eviscerated by critics. Despite Netflix not releasing viewing figures, it is clear that people are watching because 13 Reasons Why was renewed for season 4 before season 3 was even released, despite all the negative reviews.
  • Baywatch was much-hated and was once voted the worst TV show exported to Britain, but it was a huge success when it first aired and is fondly recalled even to this day.
  • The less said about the once-massive hatedom for Barney & Friends, the more you'll understand. 90% of older kids hated the hell out of it (and no doubt helped cause Barney's Great Adventure to be a Box Office Bomb) but it was quite a merchandising success.
  • Manimal is often regarded as one of the worst television shows ever made (however, there are shows that are more deserving of that title), but it still has managed to have a decently-sized cult following.
  • In spite of the Narm that Glee was known for, it was a huge success for Fox and ran for 6 seasons and 121 episodes.

    Music 
  • Liberace was undoubtedly a talented pianist, but critics despised him from bringing Classical Music to kitschy low ends. In a famous reaction to this criticism, Liberace said: "I cried all the way to the bank."
  • Rascal Flatts, at least from about 2004-2010. Ever since Dann Huff became their producer, they've been widely criticized for many reasons: Huff's bombastic production; Gary LeVox's over-the-top, whiny, nasal singing voice; and unimpressive song choices. Such derision didn't stop them from continuing to land in the Top 10, sell lots of albums, win lots of awards, and overall be the top band in country music for several years running. It would seem that the band eventually learned their lesson in 2010, when their label (Disney-owned Lyric Street) closed, and they moved over to the indie label Big Machine Records to greater critical acclaim, but generally diminishing returns on the charts as Lady Antebellum and Zac Brown Band took over as the dominant bands in the genre (before they, too, tapered off).
  • Both Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were dismissed by critics in their early years, which didn't stop them from becoming very popular anyway. Nowadays the critics are usually more appreciative, however.
  • This trope applies to every well-known Progressive Rock band you could think of, with the possible exception of King Crimson. Bands such as Yes, Genesis, The Moody Blues, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer were loathed by critics during the early 1970s prog heyday. Still, music fans flocked to their shows and bought their albums.
  • Grand Funk Railroad was largely savaged by critics and even found themselves at the butt of an urban legend, yet found significant commercial success even outside the Lowest Common Denominator. As Snopes put it:
    And Grand Funk wasn't an act of the cute, well-groomed, sugary variety (like their contemporaries the Osmonds or the Bay City Rollers, or later entries such as the Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys) who garnered huge followings by appealing to prepubescent girls or drooling adolescent males — their records were bought by, and their concerts attended by, "real" rock fans.
  • Nickelback can be seen as the modern-day version of Grand Funk Railroad in this respect. They have been widely panned by critics, were once voted the worst band of all time, countless YouTube videos are devoted to picking apart how all their songs sound the same, and a Finnish university student even wrote a paper dedicated to figuring out why they're hated by many. It hasn't stopped the band from selling more than 50 million albums worldwide. As Chad Kroeger once noted, "Yeah, everybody hates us. We suck. Sure. But you know, somebody out there is buying our albums anyway."
  • A lot of late 1970s/early 1980s Arena Rock bands were despised by critics while still selling multi-platinum albums. None got it worse than Toto, who were accused of using their industry connections (they'd all been prolific session musicians before they formed the band) to rig the Grammy Awards in 1983.
  • In the 1980s, Stevie Nicks was commonly dismissed by 'highbrow' rock critics (Rolling Stone was particularly egregious in this regard) who fawned on her former lover and current bandmate Lindsey Buckingham, notwithstanding that his albums were only a fraction as popular as hers. Many of those same critics did a perfect about-face and hailed her as an elder stateswoman of rock and roll in the late 1990s and 2000s.
  • Music critics hated the entire Hair Metal genre during the 1980s, but that didn't stop it from becoming the biggest music genre in the world during that decade. When Grunge became popular in the early 1990s and pushed hair metal out of the spotlight, those critics breathed a sigh of relief and embraced the 'earthy, genuine, and intelligent' new rock genre. However, 80s nostalgia has helped the genre experience a resurgence in popularity with bands like Mötley Crüe and Poison having highly successful tours, with some of these bands even releasing new albums.
  • Britney Spears has one of the biggest groups of detractors in all of pop land but somehow manages to get those #1 singles and albums, sell out tours, get hired for big bucks for TV shows, and generally remain relevant and popular in the public eye.
  • At the height of its popularity, Dubstep was reviled by every music critic, lambasted as a tuneless disgrace to all music. It's still widely loved by a huge number of fans and the artists that produce and play it are still widely commercially successful.
  • Funk Carioca, a genre in Brazil that is a derivative of Miami bassnote . People mention the over-sexualization of women and the genre's association with drug dealers and other kinds of criminal elements as reasons, and as such is reviled by critics, but still very popular by the masses.
    • Brazil also has the genre known as "College Country" (sertanejo universitário), which the masses love even if it's otherwise panned for shallow themes and vapid lyrics.
  • When she first appeared, most critics said, and not without some justification, that Lady Gaga would still be a C-List Girl Singer with no record contract were it not for her outlandish behavior, and that her 'true talent' wasn't music, but rather PR management. Millions of her fans surprisingly failed to care and buy her albums in droves. Her later material even won critics over.
  • Classical music is often thought of as being above such battles, but Giacomo Puccini is an example of a composer who's effectively Critic Proof. There is a large body of informed opinion in the classical world which argues that Puccini may have had a knack for catchy tunes, but compared to his compatriot Giuseppe Verdi he had very little talent for constructing musical drama, and most of his stories, however promising, are effectively ruined by the steaming ladles of musical Narm that he poured over them. However, none of this seems to affect Puccini's box office, and he remains one of the most popular opera composers ever. As Verdi once advised opera house director Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the box office receipts are the only gauge of success: "The theater is meant to be full, not empty."
  • Billy Joel has been known to have been savaged critically, at least at the height of his success, but according to Wikipedia has sold 150 million albums worldwide as of 2013. His 1978 album 52nd Street (which bears the distinction of being the first album mass-manufactured for Compact Disc in 1982) won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, he's a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and many of his hits have become standards.
  • The Kidz Bop albums definitely qualify, albeit not so much with professional critics as with more casual music fans. The main complaints are that they Bowdlerize already mediocre songs by censoring the lyrics (in some cases actually making the lyrics dirtier and even so, the lyrics are still not appropriate for kids) and have kids sing the songs, never mind that they can't even sing and might not even be going through puberty, yet these albums still sell enough to warrant 44 albums.
  • Elton John very rarely, especially at the height of his fame got the kind of critical respect he had during his singer-songwriter period for his albums (although he had released his fair share of inconsistent albums as well, even his more notable albums and songs received unfair criticism), yet he remained one of the top acts of The '70s and has been very successful at many times since his heyday. Much of the blame can be due to his very high profile all over the media, and some of it due to the fact he adopted an increasingly flamboyant image as he changed to a more glam-rock and pop-oriented sound by Honky Chateau.
  • The Eagles: One of the most popular rock bands of all time, and one of the most universally critically reviled. Allmusic is one of the few review sites that has anything good to say about them.
  • The early years of Hip-Hop were heavily criticized by so-called music experts. It was bashed in the 70s and 80s as not being real music and just a rebellious childhood fad that would soon pass, since there were other things that went with the music, like graffiti, break dancing, etc. Then during the 90s and 2000s, despite the music growing in popularity, it was considered by many critics to be dangerous to society and there were even attempts during the 90s from politicians to get the music banned from the States (none of which really went anywhere). Nowadays, in the 2020s, it still has a number of critics, yet Hip Hop has been ranked the most popular music genre in the world in terms of physical and downloadable sales.
  • Invoked by name by the 2004 edition of The New Rolling Stone Album Guide in its review of Ratt's Out of the Cellar.
  • "We Built This City" by Starship is often regarded as one of the worst songs ever recorded, a title that is mainly the fault of the song's infamous music video and Blender magazine's (kinda bias-fueled) "50 Worst Songs Ever" list,, yet it was a #1 hit when it was released back in 1985 and still gets airplay on many '80s radio stations, along with getting used in many films and TV shows even to this day.
  • Maroon 5 has been mostly panned by both professional and amateur reviewers after Overexposed, criticizing the band for selling out since that album and making meaningless, radio-friendly music. However, all of that hate has yet to keep them from churning out many hit singles and scoring multiple Platinum-certified records.
  • Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has been constantly mocked throughout the years, yet is still a favorite of Christmas radio stunting schedules.
  • Weezer's 2005 LP Make Believe is generally seen by critics and fans as one of their weaker efforts, but it's also one of their best-selling albums and spawned their only major pop hit, "Beverly Hills".
  • Back in the day, critics would write utterly scating reviews of Pink Floyd's albums, but this did nothing to stop them from having many of the best selling albums of all time, including The Dark Side of the Moon, which was the best selling album of all time until being surpassed by Michael Jackson's Thriller.
  • Eminem, while regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, consistently sells millions of records and outselling almost every other rapper despite having faced powerful critical backlash to all of his albums starting from 2004. This especially affects his work starting from Recovery, a massive commercial hit combining Arena Rock with his hyper-technical rap style, which audiences delighted in, but critics largely sneered at. He has also faced significant backlash for his use of Vulgar Humor in a time when bigoted shock-comedy is out of fashion, and for a perceived stereotype of his audience being Lower-Class Lout white males with reactionary social politics. (This is factually inaccurate; Eminem's fanbase was overwhelmingly left-aligned and female at his peak, and still skews female today.)

    Newspaper Comics 
  • Garfield is a frequent target of mockery, but it's also one of the most popular comic strips around, appearing in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide and is still profitable through merchandising (which creator Jim Davis freely admits was his entire reason for making the strip).

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Hulk Hogan has long been criticized by Smart Mark fans and journalists for being boring, formulaic, and a politicking glory hound. None of this stopped Hogan from becoming the top draw in WWF from the mid-80s to the early-90s and one of the most famous pro wrestlers of all time, with only "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock and John Cena obtaining a similar amount of success in the company as the Hulkster (and Cena received similar criticism by smark fans as well).

    Tabletop Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering falls under this at times:
    • Even discounting the impact the COVID-19 Pandemic had on the game, 2020 was a rough year for Magic; Standard that year put out some of the most broken cards in recent memory— between half a dozen Game Breakers being printed in Throne of Eldraine alone, the Companion mechanic in Ikoria warping every single format in the game, and Zendikar Rising basically causing everyone to build a '4 color goodstuff' archetype thanks to Omnath, Locus of Creation being an incredible build-around, people were complaining that the design team had gone off the rails. Despite this, 2020 was said to be one of Magic's most successful years in terms of sales.
    • The Secret Lair product line is derided for its lack of quality control, capitalizing on FOMO to sell overpriced products, and willingness to tie into non-Magic intellectual property, but it is objectively one of the most profitable products Wizards puts out.
  • Contemporary reviews of the 1935 game Monopoly are largely negative, with common complaints including the runaway leader problem, its implementation of Player Elimination, the amount of luck, and the game being too long for what it is. It still sells a ton of copies and is a frequent Themed Stock Board Game. In fact, it's the fourth best-selling board game of all time, only behind Backgammon, Checkers and Chess (all of which have centuries-long histories and are still well-regarded).

    Theatre 
  • The Jewish/Irish ethnic comedy play Abie's Irish Rose opened on Broadway in 1922, and quickly became a laughingstock of theatre critics. It closed five years later, having run longer than any previous Broadway show.
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber's Eighties musicals Cats and The Phantom of the Opera were heavily criticized as empty Spectacle, but were phenomenally successful with audiences anyway.
  • Les Misérables:
    • It was panned by critics after the first performance in the 1980s. The cast expected empty seats at the next performance. It is now the longest-running musical in the world.
    • Les Mis received negative reviews in the U.K. at the beginning but that American critics and audiences were united in application, with the musical making the cover of Newsweek and getting much press, thus making it an Inverted Trope/Played Straight depending on the location.
  • In-story example: In Dream Girl, Jim is fired by a publishing house after he turns down Always Opal (an obvious Fictional Counterpart of Forever Amber), which proceeds to sell out at bookstores everywhere. "If I had it to do over again, I'd still turn that book down," he tells his sister-in-law Georgina, who completely agrees with him on the book's trashiness: "It's nothing but a lot of dressed-up smut, atrociously written, and all in very bad taste, if you ask me."
  • If the reviews for the movie adaptation are to be believed (with Janet Maselin calling the musical "a horror on the stage" and Jonathan Rosenbaum calling it "terrible" - Fridge Logic suggests that they are to talk given that they only did movie reviews and never reviewed a stage musical once), critics absolutely hated Beatlemania (a tribute musical for The Beatles), but it was successful enough to run for a total of 1,006 performances from May of 1977 to October of 1979.

    Toys 
  • The Equestria Girls line of My Little Pony dolls are fairly huge sellers, but they're mocked by nearly all MLP and doll fans/collectors for their cheapness and hideousness.

    Video Games 
  • Most EA Sports franchises, though FIFA Soccer and NHL Hockey have been acclaimed in later years. Part of FIFA's success should be credited to the poor job Konami did with Pro Evolution Soccer on the last couple years.
  • Enter the Matrix sold five million copies despite being panned by critics (and many gamers, after they bought it).
  • Gamespot once gave out an annual "Worst Game Everyone Played" award until it stopped doing so after 2010. Past winners included:
  • Licensed games tend to fare this way. Superman 64, despite being widely considered one of the worst games ever made, actually sold pretty well.note 
  • When New Super Mario Bros. 2 came out, some critics gave it harsh reviews for being a Mission-Pack Sequel to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but it became the fourth best-selling game for the 3DS.
  • Valhalla Knights has managed to become a franchise despite scathing reviews in the North American gaming media.
  • Gaming critics hated almost everything about the Wii, which eventually sold over 100 million units worldwide (the third home console to do so). It helped that the Wii predominantly targeted casual and non-gamers - who generally wouldn't bother defending it against the gaming crowd because they're not invested even if they did see it being bashed - rather than the typical console audience.note 
  • The Just Dance series is the biggest Cash-Cow Franchise of Ubisoft when each entry of the series is known to get average scores from critics. Even the first game was negatively received by critics, but that didn't stop the game from being a commercial success which led to the series' launch.
  • Destiny has received very mixed reviews, its story in particular, being a So Okay, It's Average Cliché Storm. This hasn't stopped it from being amazingly successful.
  • Dynasty Warriors (and by extension, almost any Warriors game) is hated to death by critics. While not necessarily as popular as some other examples, the series does sell well enough constantly to justify translating another game in the series.
  • Frogger (1997) sold over 6 million copies despite middling to negative reviews.
  • Haydee: Game reviewers and twitter "pundits" were very quick to dismiss the game because of its blatant Fanservice in the form of Haydee, considering it out of place as well as Fetish Retardant for various reasons. However, most casual gamers who enjoy the game do so in large part because of said fanservice, and Haydee is quite a popular Rule 34 target. If nothing else, it was succesful enough to receive a sequel despite the negative reviews.
  • Nekopara was savaged by critics for its Excuse Plot and short length, with the clean version being criticized for being diabetes incarnate, but went on to become one of the most successful doujin visual novels of all time, spawning multiple sequels, an OVA, and an anime adaptation, which also sold well despite critical thrashing.
  • The first several entries of the Neptunia franchise received terrible reviews. It went on to become its developer's flagship series, with various adaptations and multiple games per year.
  • Reviews for the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games titles were generally mixed to average, but the general public still bought them in droves anyway. Most of the derision comes not from the quality of the actual games, but rather from the fact that fans of both franchises would have preferred if the characters crossed over in Platform Games instead.
  • Minecraft: Story Mode stands as an unusual game within Telltale Games' library, with many hardcore fans and critics not being sure what to make of a narrative-driven take on the famously freeform and story-light Minecraft, with opinions on the actual game itself being all over the place. In spite of this, it turned out to be the only game Telltale made after The Walking Dead: Season One that made them a profit.
  • Nintendo Switch Sports received nigh overwhelming hatred from Wii Sports fans since its initial reveal, and upon release, received extremely mixed reviews from both gamers and critics alike. But that didn't stop it from being one of the best selling Nintendo Switch games, and it even was the most popular game on the Nintendo Eshop for a while.
  • The Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man is one of the most iconic examples of a Porting Disaster to both fans and critics, routinely placing on 'worst game ever' lists for its primitive graphics, poor sound quality, and sprite flickering making the game almost unplayable. Despite this, its heavy advertising campaign and the mere fact that it was a Pac-Man game on the 2600 ensured it became the bestselling game on the system by a wide margin (though it was still a failure due to Atari printing more copies of the game than consoles sold thinking it would boost console sales). It's often seen as a factor in The Great Video Game Crash of 1983, as such a disastrous game reaching so much of Atari's audience didn't exactly reflect well on the company.
  • Pokémon has increasingly become that, especially since the Switch era, which has come to be considered the Audience-Alienating Era of the franchise by some, as the technical quality of the main games delivered dropped due to a mix of their very tight schedules and Game Freak's increased ambitions for the franchise. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet may be the most glaring example; launched riddled with bugs and glitches, it garnered mixed reviews critically and by the core fans of the franchise, becoming the lowest ranking title of the main games in Metacritic, but still went on to become not only the biggest launch in the franchise's history, but Nintendo's biggest launch ever, as well as the biggest launch for any console-exclusive, raking in twice the amount of copies sold to the critically and publically acclaimed God of War Ragnarök.
  • Richman 10 is rated negatively by both the critics and most of the fans of the series for being an outright stepback from previous installments with many reasons like a lot of core features being cut for no reason, the graphic being too weird and utilizing a "Release now, finish later" model (even then, the game was finished in one year after re-release with no brand new characters or cards, and a handful of filler maps), but it sold very well, selling one million copies across all platforms by the end of 2021.
  • The Senran Kagura franchise is constantly demonized outside of Japan for its fanservice elements, but this hasn't hurt the franchise's rising popularity in the slightest, with many fanservice-centric spinoffs. The games themselves being actually very solid hack and slash titles if you get past the aggressive fanservice doesn't hurt, either.
  • The Sniper: Ghost Warrior series sells very well (by January 2021, the entire series had sold 11 million units with every game selling at least over a million) despite consistently mediocre to bad critic and user reviews.
  • Wii Party received mixed-at-best reviews from critics, but sold 9.3 million copies worldwide and spawned a sequel.

    Webcomics 
  • Assigned Male is a favorite punching bag of online critics for its shoddy artwork and Author Tract issues, as well as a target of some trans people who accuse it of horribly botching a moral that they would normally agree with. Despite the amount of mockery and criticism it gets online, the comic has been one of Patreon's top 10 earners for several years and shows no signs of slowing down.
  • Ctrl+Alt+Del. Despite, or perhaps because of, the group of detractors that the webcomic and its proprietor accrued, it maintains a solid following.
  • Sinfest is infamous nowadays for its preachy sex-negative feminist messages and plotlines (later dipping into trans-exclusion and later yet into anti-vax), but it still maintains consistent readership and is still updated daily with no signs of slowing down for the foreseeable future.
  • TwoKinds has been the target of many a Caustic Critic yet it's run strong for 12 years and the creator manages to sell physical books of the comic and an art book for it in his store.

    Western Animation 

  • Early reviews for The Looney Tunes Show ripped it apart, calling it an insult to the Looney Tunes franchise, but that didn't stop the show from gaining (at least at first) huge ratings and a sizable Periphery Demographic, including classic Looney Tunes fans.
  • Johnny Test got very good ratings (probably because its low budget allowed it to make money even when the bare minimum of viewers were watching it), ran for about six seasons on TV (being Uncancelled after its third season), and was Adored by the Network, yet it gained a gargantuan Periphery Hatedom from the notorious online cartoon community and its infamously polarizing sub-community of reviewers, who widely considered it as one of the worst series ever made (though the series has its defenders). In fact, it's believed behind-the-scenes issues were what finally killed its initial run rather than the show's infamy. It also became one of the most watched children's shows on Netflix, to the point where the service commissioned a revival of the show for two additional seasons.
  • Almost Naked Animals was Adored by the Network to the point where it became the first third-party show featured on Cartoon Network's revival of Cartoon Planet in the States, ran for 52 episodes over 3 seasons, got a ton of licensed merchandising (including plushies, water bottles, clothes, umbrellas, books, and Taco Bell kids' meals toys!), and was nominated for a Gemini Award (the Canadian answer to the Emmys). Despite this, it carries a strong Periphery Hatedom with the abovementioned online cartoon community and reviewing sub-community, who consider it one of the worst cartoons ever, and has also received intensely negative reception among users on sites like IMDb and TV.com, with user ratings averaging out in the 2.0-3.0 range.
  • Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) is one of the most polarizing superhero cartoons ever made, and yet it still ran for four successful seasons. The toys in particular (the shilling of which was one of the most criticized aspects of the show) proved very lucrative for Hasbro and Marvel.
  • On the DC side, there's Teen Titans Go!, which zig-zags this trope a bit. The show developed a massive Periphery Hatedom from fans of the original series who feel the Denser and Wackier show is an insult to the original, with the show itself lovingly taking shots at those detractors (though it does have its share of fans and defenders as well). The zig-zagging comes from not only the series spending several years as one of Cartoon Network's highest-rated shows, but also from it being nominated for a much-coveted Emmy Award twice. Like Johnny Test, it only has bare amounts of viewers now, but it still makes a lot of money and has been going on for nine years as of this writing—something that its 2003 predecessor never managed. The theatrical movie also received high praise from critics for its mix of lowbrow humor and clever parody.
  • The Flintstones: From its 1960 inception, critics and Golden Age Animation purists hated it because it's, well, Hanna-Barbera. And Hanna-Barbera has always had a large segment of detractors. But that didn't stop The Flintstones from enjoying a six-year primetime run, various spinoffs, and two theatrical movies, and Hanna-Barbera staying in operation for over four decades as the biggest studio in television animation.
  • The Chicago Tribune had a review bashing the Mummies Alive! compilation movie Mummies Alive! – The Legend Begins which didn't deter kids from watching it.
  • The Emperor's New School was bashed by critics and fans for re-using gags from the films and by Moral Guardians for "minimal educational value and frequent displays of socially aggressive behavior", but kids still watched it.
  • The Terrytoons were critically panned during The Golden Age of Animation, but the studio still managed to outlast its competition (save for Walter Lantz Productions) and has a cartoon library that put Looney Tunes to shame.
  • Despite an intense negative reception, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go appears to be doing well financially to the point of greenlighting two more seasons. It even was exported internationally with lots of foreign dubs and it has a small following from people that like both this spin-off/reboot and its predecessor equally, which slightly increased when Brake Car Bruno was introduced.
  • Velma was near-universally panned by viewers and critics alike, with it being one of the lowest rated shows on IMDB, yet it received a high amount of viewers during its premiere and has became one of the most watched shows on HBO Max, possibly because of its negative reception.

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