""Toy Story 2"" Rates A+ With Cinemascore Audiences
CinemaScore.com today announced that Disney/Pixar's ""Toy Story 2"" is only the second movie this year to get an A+ audience rating. ""Toy Story 2"" is also the no.1 rated movie of the year, based on CinemaScore's weekly in theater audience surveys. (The single other A+ rated movie of the 1999 was ""Music Of The Heart,"" from Miramax.) ""In our 20 year history, only six sequels have ever gotten an A+ rating. `Toy Story 2' is the first one since Tri-Star Pictures' `Terminator II' in 1991,"" said Edward Mintz, President of CinemaScore. ""Out of nearly 2,000 films, only 31 films received A+ ratings from the audience,"" added Mintz. ""Disney originally planned to make `Toy Story 2' be a direct-to-video release, but luckily, they changed their plans. It's a hit,"" said Brad Peppard, President of CinemaScore Online. ""With CinemaScore.com, even the most skeptical movie-goer can confidently find out what his peers are saying about a particular film."" Anyone with an email address can now access the same information that's been used by studio executives for the past 20 years. ""There's no quicker or easier way to find the best movie to see or to rent,"" continued Peppard. CinemaScore.com is the new, free online newsletter service that delivers movie grades (A+ to F) on current movies and video releases at www.cinemascore.com. CinemaScore provides quick, easy-to-use, overnight ratings that make it easy to avoid disappointing movies and uncover hidden movie gems. Movie grades are based on in-theater surveys of actual movie-goers attending the movies on opening night. Every Friday, hundreds of people all across the country are surveyed. The target size for each movie survey is 500 completed surveys. Plans are in place to increase this to 1,000 surveys next year (2000). To find out what real audiences are saying about today's films, as well as over 2,000 films from the last 18 years, movie-goers should access the CinemaScore.com Web site: www.cinemascore.com and register for the free e-newsletter. About CinemaScore.com CinemaScore.com tracks and reports audience reactions by age and gender. In the weekly e-newsletter and on the Web site (www.cinemascore.com), review information is divided into six specific groups: ages under 21; 21 to 34, and 35 and older; with male and female segments for each age category. CinemaScore.com visitors may search for film information by key word, actor, director, or by film title. In addition to the film report scores, film box office gross totals are also posted. Now movie-goers can find out what their peers think about films. They no longer have to rely on traditional reviewers, whose opinions often do not reflect the reactions of actual movie goers. CinemaScore.com is the product of a collaborative effort between Edward Mintz, President of CinemaScore, and Michael Bach, CEO of Survey.com, a leading Internet based market research firm in San Jose, California. Building on the traditional feedback services method that proved to be invaluable to the motion picture industry in validating internal pre-release research information, CinemaScore.com provides this service in a Web-based version available online to the general public. About ""Toy Story 2"" The sequel to the smash hit original, ""Toy Story 2,"" is touted as smarter and funnier. The film stars Tom Hanks as frontier sheriff Woody and Tim Allen as spaceman Buzz Lightyear as well as Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Jim Varney and Wallace Shawn. Improvements in computer technology since the original's release have made for significant technical advances, allowing for more exciting visual effects.