Indicators of a Successful Box-Office Performance
Faculty Sponsor(s)
Eric Schuck
Subject Area
Economics
Description
Whether a movie is “successful” in the box-office or not depends entirely on a unique combination of film characteristics. The challenge for a film production company is to identify these characteristics and use them to maximize profit in the box-office. This research examines the explanatory power of possible indicators leading to the performance of box-office release. A movie dataset containing 1,000 entries ranging from 2015 to 2021 was run against total movie revenue and includes commonly seen variables of a movie like audience rating, genre, critical score, production company, budget, and runtime. Preforming a regression analysis of this data showed that budget, runtime, and audience rating have statistical significance in the success of box-office release. Previous research on the subject is tangent with this data and indicates that there is some existing formula of characteristics that contribute to the success of box-office release. The complication of existing research is that the degree to which these characteristics each contribute to box-office success is largely inconsistent. The empirical data in this study offers conclusive evidence that budget, runtime, and audience rating are variables that contribute to maximizing profit in the box-office.
Recommended Citation
Moes, Patrick, "Indicators of a Successful Box-Office Performance" (2024). Linfield University Student Symposium: A Celebration of Scholarship and Creative Achievement. Event. Submission 2.
https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/symposium/2024/all/2
Indicators of a Successful Box-Office Performance
Whether a movie is “successful” in the box-office or not depends entirely on a unique combination of film characteristics. The challenge for a film production company is to identify these characteristics and use them to maximize profit in the box-office. This research examines the explanatory power of possible indicators leading to the performance of box-office release. A movie dataset containing 1,000 entries ranging from 2015 to 2021 was run against total movie revenue and includes commonly seen variables of a movie like audience rating, genre, critical score, production company, budget, and runtime. Preforming a regression analysis of this data showed that budget, runtime, and audience rating have statistical significance in the success of box-office release. Previous research on the subject is tangent with this data and indicates that there is some existing formula of characteristics that contribute to the success of box-office release. The complication of existing research is that the degree to which these characteristics each contribute to box-office success is largely inconsistent. The empirical data in this study offers conclusive evidence that budget, runtime, and audience rating are variables that contribute to maximizing profit in the box-office.
