Hellboyactor Ron Perlman, who starred inNetflix’sDon’t Look Upopposite Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, had some strong words for critics and journalists who reviewed the film unfavorably.Don’t Look Upcurrently holds a 55% critic’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 78% audience score, showing that while critics panned the film, regular viewers still liked it.
Netflix’sDon’t Look Upis an apocalyptic political satire written, produced anddirected by Adam McKay(Succession) and starring Lawrence (Hunger Games) and DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street) as two astronomers at Michigan State University who discover a giant meteor is cruising towards Earth, making total destruction of the world imminent. On a journey to warn the country that death is nigh, the pair run up against an ineffectual government, uninterested populace, and corporate greed.
RELATED:Don’t Look Up Review
In comments made toThe Independent, a United Kingdom newspaper that gave the film a 4-star, mostly favorable review, Perlman said, “F*** you and your self-importance and this self-perpetuating need to say everything bad about something just so that you may get some attention for something that you had no idea about creating.” It was unclear whether his comments were targetingThe Independentspecifically or all critics in general. He went on, “It’s corrupt. And it’s sick. And it’s twisted.” Perlman did allow the journalists he insulted this: “it’s part of how the internet has almost killed journalism. And now journalism is trying to do everything they can to co-opt and maintain their importance.”
Running at two hours and eighteen minutes, many critics noted that the film felt bloated, unfocused, and depressing.The Hollywood Reporterdescribed it as a “tiresome doomsday whoopee cushion.”The GuardianfoundDon’t Look Upto have an interesting subject but a patronizing approach, writing in their review that the “script states the obvious as if everyone else is too stupid to realize it.”Don’t Look Updefenders have pointed to Netflix’s self-released stats indicating the film was the most-watched streaming film in the week of December 20-26, 2021. However, Netflix’s streaming figures are notoriously hard to independently verify because the streamer does not make their metrics public.
Pitched as an allegory for climate change,Don’t Look Upproduction was stalledby the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020 but shooting began November 2020 and finished by February 2021. It began streaming on Netflix on August 09, 2025. Some viewers noticed a “mistake” in the film that turned out to be purposefully left in the final cut: the entire crew, masked and in PPE, can be seen in the background of a shot. McKay clarified that he let the mistake stay in the film as it “commemorates [their] strange filming experience.”
Perlman seems to be sayingdigital media and “clickbait” cultureare driving the slew of poor reviews of his film, possibly suggesting derogatory and negative reviews drive more online traffic to a site than positive reviews. He does not seem to hold the opinion that the film, which Rolling Stone called “a bomb of a movie hurtling right towards you,” might just not be that good. Ironic then, that Perlman’s comments make for the perfect “journalism-killing” clickbait he claims to abhor.
