Box-office Returns Research Articles

Research of Influence Factors on Disney Movies

Disney movies have consistently proven to be a leader in the entertainment industry, not only because of their ability to resonate emotionally with audiences but also because of their outstanding contribution to the economy. At the heart of this economic impact is the exceptional production quality of Disney movies. The dedication to high-quality filmmaking ensures that Disney movies capture the hearts and minds of a wide range of audiences, thus guaranteeing consistent and substantial box office returns. As a giant in the movie industry, Disney does not rely solely on ticket sales; their movies are the starting point for countless other sources of revenue. For example, the demand for related merchandise tends to spike at the same time after each Disney movie is released. From action figures and costumes to bedding and school supplies, Disney-branded products go off the shelves. These merchandise not only boost Disney's profits, but also contribute to the growth of the manufacturing, retail, and distribution industries, which in turn stimulates broader economic growth. In addition, Disney's movies play a pivotal role in the success and expansion of its world-renowned theme parks. Characters and stories from Disney movies come to life in these parks, making them irresistible attractions for children and adults alike. As these parks thrive, so do their neighboring tourism and service industries, contributing greatly to the local economy. On the global front, the universal appeal of Disney movies has ensured the continued health of the worldwide theater industry.

Shaw in America (Bernard Shaw on the American Stage: A Chronicle of Premieres and Notable Revivals)

Shaw in America (Bernard Shaw on the American Stage: A Chronicle of Premieres and Notable Revivals)

Adaptations versus original film premieres trends in broadband society: a comparative analysis

In the era of the Broadband Society, cloud journalism, and streaming, the film industry is trying to modify traditional distribution channels. The adaptation of literary classics was one of the most widespread practices to obtain well-known, quality material for new productions. The objective of this research is to understand empirically what differences are involved in industry’s major production and distribution companies’ choice between adapting preexisting material or creating an entirely new film, as well as the benefits of adaptations. The methodology is comparative and quantitative, consisting of collecting data on films from the five major distributors (Universal, Warner Bros, Disney, Sony, and Paramount) from 2010 to 2019 and analyzing variables to detect market trends related to adaptations during that decade. We observed a higher percentage of adaptations as well as correlations between adaptations and film genre, distributor and genre, adaptations and awards, awards and genre, and genre and the film’s evaluation, as well as between distributor and average budget, adaptations and budget, adaptation and opening weekend box office takings, genre and profit, adaptations and worldwide box office revenues, ratings and worldwide box office takings, and awards and worldwide box office takings; however, this was not observed between adaptation and profit and the breakeven point. It is concluded that, despite the fact that the trend of using this practice has not increased in recent years, it provides a great advantage compared with debuting new intellectual property.

Scaling up? Remaking Kurosawa’s The Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress

What accounts for the huge success of the Star Wars franchise and conversely also for the failure of some attempts at replicating its achievement? This article argues that focusing on four concepts – making things right, scalar replication, the transcultural and transnational – can help us to understand why the 50th anniversary remake of Kurosawa Akira’s Kakushitoride no Sanakunin (The Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress, 1958) was not a success. There are various ways in which Kakushitoride no Sanakunin, The Last Princess (The Hidden Fortress, The Last Princess, Higuchi Shinji, 2008) works to answer questions thrown up by the original – to make things right – as well as a clear attempt at scalar replication. Moreover, this remake endeavored to capture the magnitude not just of the original but also of Star Wars IV: A New Hope – which had long acknowledged Kurosawa’s influence – and its sequels. It clearly aimed to produce, if not a franchise, then at least a sequel. The poor box office takings in Japan and the few international distribution deals for Higuchi’s remake reveal just how tough it can be to successfully translate and transmute a narrative, as well as how difficult it can be to create an economically successful and thus transnational franchise series.

Deciphering the Commercial Miracle: The Research on the Marketing and Distribution Process of Chinese Youth Films after 2010s

Youth Films (qingchunpian), which are characterized by nostalgia and coming-to-age narratives, expanded its influence after 2010s in Chinese film market. The considerable profits of youth films derived from low budget and substantial box office returns. Compared to main melody films (zhuxuanlv) and traditional comedies which are supported by the government and own large amounts of budget, the commercial success of youth films is unique in Chinese film industry. Although there is existing research on the entire trend of Chinese film market and content analysis of youth films, the internal logic and marketization process remain opaque. Exploring the marketization process of youth films and the reasons of their success can help in understanding the new trend in Chinese film industry in which how films with low budget can live. Therefore, the research conducts an interview of industry insiders to visualize the backstory of distribution process. After demonstrating the interview and analyzing the existing statistical data, the research argues that three factors affecting success of youth films (and those new rising film genres in China) are: the time to release the film, the integration of marketing and distribution companies, and the use of IP (development of existing IP and marketizing IP through use of theme songs).

Development of Arthouse Cinemas in China: At a Crossroads

Abstract The distribution and exhibition of arthouse films in China’s burgeoning film industry came into the spotlight in 2016 with the launch of the Nationwide Alliance of Arthouse Cinemas. At the same time, issues surrounding the distribution and marketing of arthouse films have emerged in professional and academic discourse. This paper aims to better understand the unique factors that influence the Chinese arthouse film market, including the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. For this purpose, a qualitative research method combining a survey of the terrain, a review of the literature and semi-structured interviews was employed. The article argues that although China’s film industry has become first in the world in terms of the number of screens and box office takings, the arthouse cinema market is still at the exploration stage due to restrictions on film import. Arthouse cinemas are also currently facing new challenges brought on by a rise in online film consumption.

The era of baokuan films: How Chinese social media creates box office successes

Exemplified by Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), Dying to Survive (2018), and The Wandering Earth (2019), a group of popular Mainland Chinese films labelled baokuan (爆款) has emerged since the mid-2010s. These baokuan movies are known in China for their extremely high domestic box office takings and overwhelmingly positive online word-of-mouth from audiences. Using a combination of Internet studies, film marketing studies, and audience studies, this article focuses on why these baokuan films enjoy great popularity assisted by the Internet and social media in China. It argues that social media has brought two major changes: new strategies for film marketing, which predominantly rely on online promotion, and the blurring of the roles of film audiences and marketers. These changes jointly enable a film’s prestige to be continuously escalated and circulated.

Reel Piracy: The Effect of Online Film Piracy on International Box Office Sales

Hollywood films are generally released first in the United States and then later abroad, with some variation in lags across films and countries. With the growth in movie piracy since the appearance of BitTorrent in 2003, films have become available through illegal piracy immediately after release in the US, while they are not available for legal viewing abroad until their foreign premieres in each country. We make use of this variation in international release lags to ask whether longer lags – which facilitate more local pre-release piracy – depress theatrical box office receipts, particularly after the widespread adoption of BitTorrent. We find that longer release windows are associated with decreased box office returns, even after controlling for film and country fixed effects. This relationship is much stronger in contexts where piracy is more prevalent: after BitTorrent’s adoption and in heavily-pirated genres. Our findings indicate that, as a lower bound, international box office returns in our sample were at least 7% lower than they would have been in the absence of pre-release piracy. By contrast, we do not see evidence of elevated sales displacement in US box office revenue following the adoption of BitTorrent, and we suggest that delayed legal availability of the content abroad may drive the losses to piracy.

For love or money: human resource management in the performing arts

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the perceptions of key stakeholders of the human resource management (HRM) practices and challenges in performing arts organisations in Victoria, Australia. Challenges include the precarious nature of employment in the industry; poor wages and conditions leading to financial insecurity and the domination of the industry by small- and medium-sized organisations. The passion and commitment of the performing arts workforce are both a strength and a weakness in that they “buy in” to the expectations of long hours and unpaid work. These challenges impact on managers and administrators as well as performers and raise many challenges for the HRM function and places constraints on even basic HRM practices. Despite the claims of the stakeholders that the large companies have sophisticated HRM practices the early evidence suggests otherwise. Furthermore, many of these problems cannot be solved at the organisational level and need an industry and government response. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research approach is used to guide this study as it allows contextual evaluation of the data. Eight key stakeholders interviewed for this study included one official specialising in industrial relations from Live Performance Australia, one official from the Media and Entertainment and Arts Alliance, two government officials from the State government, one with responsibility for working with Performing Arts companies in relation to funding and resources, and the other with responsibility for government arts policy development; two chief executive officers – one from a small arts company and the other from a large arts company; one HR director from a large arts company; and one manager from a small-to-medium-size company. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were undertaken to provide an information-rich inquiry. Findings The study suggests that there are considerable barriers to the effective adoption and implementation of HRM in the performing arts. In particular, the research identified four major features that impact on HRM practices in the arts sector. These are: first, the precarious nature of employment, due to the short-term and project focussed work. Second, the reliance on often limited government funding, supplemented by philanthropy, sponsorship and box office takings, leading to short-term and long-term financial insecurity and limited capacity for long-term planning. Third, limited resources and high levels of casualisation which leads to low income, poor working conditions, lack of training and few opportunities for career development. Fourth, despite these difficult conditions, the sector appears to attract a highly motivated and committed workforce including not just performers but also managers and administrators and the sector appears to rely on their passion, commitment and shared endeavour. Research limitations/implications The study has limitations. For example, it focussed at the macro level of key stakeholders rather than at the organisational level which is the usual unit of analysis for HRM studies. The stakeholders made many claims about HRM practices that need to be explored in further research at the organisational level. Also, apart from the trade union interviewee, the employee voice is missing. Again, further research into both performing arts practitioners and managers and administrators would be valuable future research. Practical implications This study raises a number of implications for practice. The first is that government policy makers need to focus on the sustainability of their funding models and take account of the myriad of evidence that now exists in regard to the detrimental impact of precarious employment in the increasingly valuable performing arts sector. A policy approach that highlights longevity and development of the sector rather than an emphasis on encouraging competition between small companies for financial survival has much to offer. The second is in relation to industry players who rather than blaming governments could take some control through supporting the growth of networks that could provide training and development and career development opportunities for organisations and individuals (Hennekam and Bennett, 2017). Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of HRM systems and practices in the performing arts.

For love or money? Assessing outcomes from direct public investment in film

ABSTRACT This study examines Australian domestic film performance under two distinct policy regimes with respect to direct investment strategy. In particular, we contrast film performance under two public funding agencies with noted differences in (i) the number of films financed annually, (ii) the average (and maximum) funding per film, and (iii) the involvement of an expert review panel in funding decisions. In addition to box office returns, we consider performance benchmarks related to major film festival screenings, nominations and awards; critical acclaim based on IMDb user and critic reviews; and whether or not the film received a release in the major UK and/or US markets. Finally, we exploit a subset of our data where a ‘two-door’ policy was used for investment decisions that allows us to reflect on our more general results.

Predicting motion picture box office performance using temporal tweet patterns

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate temporal tweet patterns and their effectiveness in predicting the financial performance of a movie. Specifically, how tweet patterns are formed prior to and after a movie’s release and their usefulness in predicting a movie’s success is explored.Design/methodology/approachVolume was measured and sentiment analysis was performed on a sample of Tweets posted four days before and after the release of 86 movies. The temporal pattern of tweeting for financially successful movies was compared with those that were financial disappointments. Using temporal tweet patterns, a number of machine learning models were developed and their predictive performance was compared.FindingsResults show that the temporal patterns of tweet volume, length and sentiment differ between “hits” and “busts” in the days surrounding their releases. Compared with “busts” the tweet pattern for “hits” reveal higher volume, shorter length, and more favourable sentiment. Discriminant patterns in social media features occur days in advance of a movie’s release and can be used to develop models for predicting a movie’s success.Originality/valueAnalysis of temporal tweet patterns and their usefulness in predicting box office returns is the main contribution of this research. Results of this research could lead to development of analytical tools allowing motion picture studios to accurately predict and possibly influence the opening night box-office receipts prior to the release of the movie. Also, the specific temporal tweet patterns presented by this work may be applied to problems in other areas of research.

The Distribution of Contemporary Italian Cinema in the United States: The Films of Luca Guadagnino and Paolo Sorrentino

This essay will address the dissemination of contemporary Italian cinema in North-American theatres. In the first part, it provides an overview of theatrical circulation strategies over the past few decades, offering a historical perspective on the economic and cultural distribution processes of Italian cinema in the United States. In the second, the article focuses on quantitative data in order to examine how many and what kinds of Italian films were distributed in American theatres over the past ten years, as well as their admissions and box office takings. Specifically, this contribution focuses on the two Italian auteurs who obtained the most visibility in the US thanks to the distribution of 4 of their films between 2008 and 2017: Paolo Sorrentino and Luca Guadagnino. In order to define two different distribution models, we will identify the promotion strategies of the most widely circulated films directed by these auteurs: La grande bellezza/The Great Beauty (2013) and Youth (2015) by Sorrentino, and Io sono l’amore/I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash by Guadagnino. In the final section, we relate these cases to the historical circulation patterns of Italian cinema.

CEO COMPENSATION AND CELEBRITY EARNINGS: AN ANALOGICAL COMPARISON

ABSTRACT This study examines whether excessively high CEO compensation and celebrity earnings are related to work performance or determined by market supply and demand factors. It seeks to compare the high salaries of top executives with the high earnings of popular movie celebrities based on characteristics such as pay levels, relationship between earnings and work/project success, and the influence of market supply and demand factors. Using a social media survey, this study found that respondents believed that executives and celebrity should demonstrate outstanding knowledge and skills, and that their compensations are overstated. Interestingly, the number of respondents who stated that CEO salary should be tied to company performance is greater than those who agreed that celebrity earnings should align with box office returns. The findings of this study suggest that overpayment to CEOs and celebrities results primarily from market factors rather than from work-related successes. Keywords CEO Compensation; Celebrity Earnings

The Mirror of Desire: Queerness, Fan , and the Riddles of Paheli

The Mirror of Desire: Queerness, Fan, and the Riddles of Paheli1 Meheli Sen (bio) Doubling Down The recent, and much publicized, release of Yashraj Films’ Fan (Maneesh Sharma, IN, 2016) offers an apposite occasion to reconsider the double role in popular Hindi cinema. While the double has been a staple feature of Indian popular cinemas for melodramatic as well as figurative reasons from its earliest years, it is important to note that only a certain scale of stardom lends itself to the notion of the doppelgänger, as evidenced by the actors who have played these roles: Dilip Kumar, Nargis, Hema Malini, Amitabh Bachchan, Sridevi, and more recently, of course, Shah Rukh Khan.2 Additionally, the double or dual role is also subject to considerable variation in the popular film: for example, while certain films feature look-alikes who have no visible biological connection to each other, others deploy the double in quasi-metaphysical narratives of rebirth and reincarnation where a single “soul” passes through multiple lifetimes.3 Although in some films, the two characters remain separated by temporal or spatial imperatives—in other words, both characters are not present onscreen within the present-tense of the film, for example, SRK’s characters in Karan Arjun (Rakesh Roshan, IN, 1995),Don (Farhan Akhtar, IN, 2006), andOm Shanti Om (Farah Khan, IN, 2007)—the most enduring spectatorial pleasure of the double role is harnessed by witnessing the doubling of the star-body within single scenes and sequences. Thus, narratively and stylistically, the double offers certain unique opportunities and challenges, ranging from scenarios of lost-and-found siblings, mistaken identities, deception, and masquerade, to the mobilization of special effects that [End Page 173] enable the doubled star to be manifest within the same frame. But fundamentally, the double role is an investment imperative: a multiplication of star-value onscreen indexes certain industrial calculations in terms of projected box-office returns.4 As “infallible” guarantees for financial returns, the commercial failures of double role films—such as Fan and Paheli (Amol Palekar, IN, 2005)—presents especially fascinating objects for analysis. Indian cinema’s long romance with the double role makes the relative absence of scholarly explorations of the trope somewhat perplexing; what might account for this aporia, even as the field continues to expand at an impressive rate? I would wager that this oversight has something to do with the overwhelming dominance of melodrama as a theoretical optic. Since so much of the popular form’s proclivities have been categorized and understood as melodramatic, a figure like the double has simply failed to garner particular attention. The double role with its binary investments and dialectical propensities is particularly vulnerable to such an annexation, of course, but it is instructive to remember that the double as a figure has deep roots in epic, mythic, and folk traditions in South Asia, many of which predate melodrama as a mode. The figurative heft of the double ought to elicit critical reexamination of a kind that is beyond the scope of this essay; however, it is my contention that the manner in which the double functions in the SRK film troubles the contours of melodrama to a significant degree. The principle engine of this immiscibility is the question of “moral legibility” that Peter Brooks,5 and virtually all other scholars of melodrama, foreground as its foundational characteristic.6 Instead of providing clear coordinates for the distribution of melodramatic affects, the SRK double role introduces intensities and temporalities that stretch the mode to its limit. In what follows, I argue that the SRK double role queers the pitch for Hindi film melodrama in unique ways. This is not to suggest that the double role is beyond melodramatic reckoning in the commercial film—it is not—but here I wish to engage with the figure on its own terms, especially in relation to SRK’s stardom and filmography. In one of the few sustained scholarly explorations of the double role in Hindi cinema, Neepa Majumdar has shown how the motif can fulfill important ideological tasks, as they pertain to managing troublesome aspects of certain star texts: Using the melodramatic scenarios of the Bombay social film, the double...

“Ain’t Got No Chance”: The Case of The Breaking Point

This article explores The Breaking Point (1950), the lesser-known Hollywood adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s 1937 novel To Have and Have Not, within its postwar historical context. Transferring a fisherman’s fight for survival from the Depression into an era of prosperity and political anxiety, the film draws comparisons to the progressive Hollywood filmmaking of the time through its visions of working-class life and racial solidarity. However, its more complicated details and disappointing box-office returns simultaneously reveal that a repressive conservatism was slowly replacing calls for social reform by the dawn of the 1950s.

Comparing analysis of social media content with traditional survey methods of predicting opening night box-office revenues for motion pictures

For many years, consumers’ self-reported behavioural intentions have been successfully measured through traditional surveying tools. Purchase intention is very often used for predicting likely levels of demand for new products. More recently, use of social media content has gained popularity as a viable alternative for gauging consumers’ intention to buy. For example, Twitter has been used by many researchers for predicting box-office returns for movies with promising results. This paper investigates how traditional surveying tools compare with the use of social media. Specifically, surveys regarding intention to see a movie were administered during the same period as tweets about the movie were collected. Traditional behavioural intention measures were compared with various measures of tweeting activity to gauge how well each correlates with movie opening night box-office receipts. The results show that the two methods are very comparable.

Logic combination and performance across occupational communities: The case of French film directors

This article analyzes the effects of logic combination on cultural entrepreneurs' performance in both their original (artistic) and new (business) occupational communities. An analysis of the impact of the director-producer logic combination on artistic and commercial performance in French cinema confirms an asymmetry in outcomes: (1) although performance in the original artistic community is impaired by repeated logic combination (receiving fewer awards), (2) performance in the new business community benefits from logic combination (increased box office returns) as long as directors remain close to the boundary separating their original and new occupational communities.

The ‘good war’ on terror: rewriting empire from George W. Bush to American Sniper

Starting in the mid-2000s, a number of films were produced that challenged George W. Bush’s conflation of the War on Terror with the so-called “good war.” The films, which despite critical acclaim saw relatively low box-office returns, interrogated not only the rationale for and conduct of the War on Terror but the ontological claims of narrative and visual representation as such; resisting the dualisms, the easy resolutions and the proclaimed self-evidence of the “good war” model, they revealed both the war and its legitimation as intrinsically constructed, redacted and selective. This article identifies, in Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper, a return to the tropes of the “good” war that has sought to confer legitimacy and necessity upon the “War on Terror” and its exceptional/extrajudicial measures, arguing that, ultimately, it is precisely their expression in these terms that most starkly betrays the ideals for which the “good war” was ostensibly fought.

Million Dollar Maybe? The Effect of Female Presence in Movies on Box Office Returns

This study examines processes that contribute to the underrepresentation of women in film by linking the depiction of gender in film to its impact on domestic box office returns. Drawing on a sample of widely distributed movies from 2000 to 2009 (n = 974), we test whether the box office under‐performance of films with an independent female presence results primarily from “downstream” public rejection or from an gendered “upstream” division of resources that provides greater studio support to movies about men. Using a series of multivariate regression analyses and controlling for genre, critical appraisal, arthouse label, being a sequel, and including a popular star, films with a female presence earn less at the box office. This effect, however, appears to be largely the consequence of movies that feature women having smaller production budgets, suggesting that the underrepresentation of women in film stems from “upstream” routines of film industry gatekeepers, not a lesser interest in stories about women in the minds of the public.

Managing Vagueness with Fuzzy in Hierarchical Big Data1

Out of the web of linked open data, comes a sense of networked “Big Data.” This large scale interconnected data is hierarchical, and often messy and full of subjective bias particularly when mass collaboration is concerned (e.g. wikipedia). In this paper we apply fuzzy set theory, specifically the X-μ approach which is shown to be more efficient than a standard fuzzy approach, to attributes within linked data. We look at hierarchical structures, using an example from the films subset of the DBpedia data repository. The hierarchical nature of film categories lends itself well to our application, and we apply fuzzy models to handle the vagueness in attributes such as film length, film budget, and box office takings.