Separating hits from flops at the box office

2013 was the biggest year ever for cinematic flops. Now statisticians are claiming to accurately predict if a film will be a hit or miss — and studios are taking note.

IN Hollywood, nobody knows anything. So said William Goldman, although you’d imagine that the man who wrote ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, ‘All the President’s Men’, ‘The Princess Bride’, ‘A Bridge Too Far’ and ‘Marathon Man’, among many others, might know a thing or two about what makes a Hollywood blockbuster.

Things have changed a little in Hollywood since William Goldman was in his prime, however, on paper, ‘The Lone Ranger’ must have looked solid gold — a classic American hero, and with Johnny Depp on board to boot, it should have been looking at breaking all kinds of records, especially given its budget of almost $215 million. Its opening weekend was almost $30 million; by the time its US run ended in early October, ‘The Lone Ranger’ had earned back less than $90 million.

Another movie with high hopes, ‘R.I.P.D’., starred Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds. Released in mid-July, with a budget of $130 million, it generated box office returns of almost $34 million by the time it finished its US run in September.

Meanwhile, ‘47 Ronin’ might well top them all. Released in the US at the end of December, the Keanu Reeves action flick was made for $175 million. An ominous opening weekend of less than $10 million has industry experts predicting that it could lose up to $150 million by the time its run concludes.

The bottom dollar is a crude way to measure success, of course. ‘The Avengers’ is unlikely to feature very highly on any future list of the greatest movies ever made. Neither, for that matter, will ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’, ‘The Twilight Saga Part 2’ or ’Madagascar 3’, all of which made the Top Ten for box office returns in 2012.

By way of contrast, ‘Argo’, ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ and ‘Life of Pi’, came in at 22nd, 23rd and 32nd at the box office, respectively. The crucial difference, of course, is expectation. ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, for example, had a budget of $21 million, and earned $132 million. ‘Argo’ cost $44 million and earned $136 million. ‘Life of Pi’ cost $120 million, but delivered $124 million.

Risings costs, not least the price-tags associated with A-list actors, are pushing movie budgets higher and higher. The question Hollywood executives are now asking themselves is, how can you know which movies are going to justify a massive budget?

The answer, apparently, is to be found in algorithms.

The UK company Epagogix takes its name from the Aristotelian concept of ‘epagogue’, which is the path that leads from experience to knowledge.

“Epagogix works confidentially with the senior management of major film studios, large independents and other media companies,” declares its mission statement, “assisting with the selection and development of scripts by identifying likely successes and probable ‘turkeys’; helping to quantify a script/project’s commercial success and advising on enhancements to the box office/audience share potential.”

The firm pulls together the main metrics of movie-making — story, stars, director, location, budget, etc — and crunches the data, then compares the predicted financial outcome with that of similarly budgeted and starred movies.

If the figures stand up and predict a profit, then the movie gets made. The trend has been greeted with some dismay by those who prefer their movies made in the traditional, organic way. The flip side of the argument, however, is that it’s basic financial common sense. In what other business would investors be expected to toss $100 million into the pot and hope for the best?

Epagogix is not the only player in risk management being courted by Hollywood. Taha Yasseri wrote his PhD on spontaneous pattern formation, and focuses on ‘big data’ as he works to understand human dynamics and popularity spread. In simple terms, this involves tracking the number of hits a movie’s Wikipedia site or IMDB listing receives in the months before its release. This data is more reliable than poll-testing or focus groups, as it measures how people actually behave in private, rather than listening to what they believe the testers want to hear.

The trend in statistical interpretation and data-crunching is likely to become more pronounced in the next few years, if the evidence of the big budget hopes for 2014 is any guide. The mantra might well be ‘more of the same, just a little different’ for movies such as Godzilla, The Maze Runner and Dracula Untold, etc.

Is it possible that all of these movies, and more, can deliver both artistic quality and significant box office returns on their multi-million dollar budgets? Or will it be the case of lies, damned lies and statistics?

HISTORICAL TURKEYS

¦ The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964): The epic fall of the greatest empire of all time starred Sophia Loren, James Mason and Alec Guinness, and was directed by Anthony Mann. It currently has a ‘100% fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Somehow it managed to lose $125 million.

¦ Cutthroat Island (1995): An epic about pirates, starring Geena Davis and directed by her husband Renny Harlin. It cost $98 million to make and grossed $11 million.

¦ Heaven’s Gate (1980): Michael Cimino directed this epic Western after winning Oscars for The Deer Hunter, generating a gross of $3.5 million from a budget of $44 million. Critic Joe Queenan declared it the worst film ever made. It’s not.

¦ The 13th Warrior (1999): Adapted from Michael Crichton’s novel, this Antonio Banderas-starring Viking epic made $61 million at the box office. Unfortunately, it cost $160 million to make.