The box office, much like the stock market, is hardly a science. Whether or not a film is successful financially is due to a variety of factors, including those pesky intangibles like “buzz” and “word of mouth.” However, a group in the UK says they’ve figured it out and have scientific proof to show which films are destined to be more successful at the box office.
Ganna Pogrebna, a professor of behavioral economics and data science at the University of Birmingham in England, led a team of researchers to figure out the science behind the box office. After uploading 6,147 movie scripts into a series of algorithms, the team has identified the six profiles that most films fall under. Using those profiles, the team can deduce the likelihood of whether or not a film will succeed at the box office.
According to a report by The Guardian, the six profiles are:
- Rags to riches – the ongoing emotional rise, such as in “The Shawshank Redemption”
- Riches to rags – the ongoing emotional fall, such as in “Psycho”
- Man in a hole – the fall followed by a rise, such as in “The Godfather”
- Icarus – the rise followed by a fall, such as in “On the Waterfront”
- Cinderella – rise followed by a fall followed by a rise, as seen in “Babe”
- Oedipus – fall followed by a rise followed by a fall, seen in “All About My Mother”
And according to the research team, if you are a studio that wants to have the highest chance at making a profit, the profile to go with is “man in a hole.” The average cost of a film in that profile is $40.5 million and earns an average of $54.9 million. However, if you want to do a more deep dive, you can mix profiles with film genres.
The report says that for biographical films, “rags to riches” is the way to go. As for comedies, don’t bother with the “riches to rags” profile, as that will be the least successful. Mysteries and thrillers do the worst with a “rags to riches” profile. There’s also a correlation with budget and profiles, as well. If you have a huge budget and want an epic film, then the “riches to rags” can make you a pretty penny.
The team says they’re hoping this research will help studios be more creative by knowing what will be successful and what won’t. This will allow for studios to be more experimental and give them more security, knowing that they can recoup the money.
Of course, even with all this research, you still probably can’t predict the big failures and big wins such as “Black Panther” and other movies that are full of those aforementioned “intangibles.” However, maybe the research will help weed out the crap, as well. Fingers crossed.