86-Year-Old Beloved Franchise's Return Just Set All-Time Rotten Tomatoes Record

Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass has lost its way, as far as critics are concerned.

Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass, which debuted in U.S. theaters on September 4, is a new animated movie that is a Chinese and American co-production made with the participation of Warner Bros. Pictures. Written and directed by Zhang Gang, the movie follows the iconic Hanna-Barbera characters exploring a magical world inspired by Chinese mythology. In addition to being the first fully computer-animated feature in the franchise, it’s the third to debut in theaters, with the most recent being 2021’s Tom & Jerry, a live-action and animation hybrid starring Chloë Grace Moretz.

Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass is Zhang Gang’s feature debut, as both a director and writer.

Now, Rotten Tomatoes has aggregated enough critics’ reviews to give Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass an official score on the Tomatometer. While the score could fluctuate as more reviews are added, at the time of writing, it has earned a bottom-of-the-barrel score of 0% from 10 different critics’ reviews. The majority of the movie’s negative reviews give it low-to-middling scores, including C and 2 out of 5, but it has also received the lowest possible marks from multiple critics, receiving an F from InSession Film‘s Jacob Mauceri and a 1 out of 5 from Empire Magazine‘s Helen O’Hara.

Even though the previous two theatrical installments in the Tom and Jerry franchise have also been poorly reviewed (whereas the 15 direct-to-video films in the franchise have not received official Rotten Tomatoes scores), this 0% score sees Forbidden Compass hitting a new low, breaking an all-time record for the 89-year-old characters. Below, see a breakdown of the Rotten Tomatoes scores earned by every theatrical installment:

Title	RT Score
Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992)	14%
Tom and Jerry (2021)	29%
Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass (2026)	0%

Forbidden Compass has fared slightly better on the Popcornmeter, though it is still thoroughly Rotten. Thanks to more than 50 verified ticket buyers’ reviews on the platform, it has earned an audience score of 38%. While this is significantly higher than its Tomatometer score, it still breaks the franchise record, as the first movie eked out a slightly better Popcornmeter score of 41%, whereas the Chloë Grace Moretz movie performed significantly better with 82%, which is the only positive score that any of the three movies have received.

Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass performed similarly poorly in domestic theaters. During its debut weekend, it grossed $265,104 in 850 theaters, premiering at No. 21 behind every other new release that debuted on more than two screens, including Dear You (which only played on 150), Mirzapur: The Movie, By Any Means, and the lukewarm releases Fall 2: Deadpoint and Onslaught. Its per-screen average of $311 was the 87th lowest of all time for a new domestic release.

Ultimately, it remains to be seen if the theatrical branch of the franchise can recover from the critical and commercial performance of Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass. However, there may still be an English-language feature in the works. In 2024, it was announced that Warner Bros. Pictures Animation was developing a new movie that was set to be penned by Michael Govier (the Oscar-winning short If Anything Happens I Love You), Will McCormack (The Invite), and Parks and Recreation star Rashida Jones.