Advice about corrupted rating for a feature film I made

Hi everyone!

I'm reaching out because I've hit a bit of an issue with the IMDb rating for my recent micro-budget feature film (I made as a stepping stone for my career). I know this might sound like I’m just struggling to accept public feedback, but please read on—this is a bit more complicated, and I'm genuinely hoping to get some advice.

Basically, I understand IMDb uses a weighted average for ratings, but my question isn’t about that general system. It’s about something pretty specific that seems to have caused a huge shift in the score, and I’m not sure what to do. The rating for my film was holding steady above a 6 for a while, but then suddenly dropped to around 3. I think this change might be linked to invaid ratings following a cruel leaking situation.

Here’s the short version: after the film was released online, it leaked on a major torrenting site. Not only this but it appeared on the homepage alongside hollywood blockbusters for a period of time. My film, a micro-budget, indie project, was promoted to tens-of-thousands of pirates of mainstream hollywood movies. This was an unauthorised distribution to a group of people who weren’t the intended audience at all. Many seemed to leave one-star ratings out of frustration with the torrent site, rather than the film itself. The IMDb rating system was linked directly on that page, and a lot of users rated it without actually watching. (In fact, the one review left on imdb during this wave even admitted they didn’t watch it!)

The issue is that these one-star ratings now seem to have a lot of weight in the 'weighted' IMDb score, which doesn’t reflect genuine viewer feedback. On other platforms,and professional reviews the ratings are fair and reflect a different reception, so this IMDb score feels like it’s out of sync, and favoring the people who voted out of frustration of it appearing on this website rather than actual viewers.

I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to address this. Has anyone else encountered something similar, or does anyone know if there’s a way to request a reset or review for a specific time period? I’m really just looking for a fair rating that reflects actual viewer feedback.

Thanks so much for any guidance you can offer!