David Manning (sometimes "Dave") was a pseudonym used by a marketing executive around July 2000 to give consistently good reviews for releases from Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures.
Several fictional review quotes attributed to "David Manning" were used in the promotion of medieval action/drama A Knight's Tale (describing Heath Ledger as "this year's hottest new star!")
"[2] Manning was named after a friend of Matthew Cramer, the Sony marketing executive responsible for the insertions.
[1] The story emerged in mid-2001, around the same time as an announcement that Sony had used employees posing as moviegoers in television commercials to praise the Mel Gibson film The Patriot.
[5] On June 10, 2001, on an episode of Le Show, host Harry Shearer conducted an in-studio interview with David Manning.