The Perfect Formula For Box Office Success 397
Julez writes "According to icLiverpool, the formula for creating the "perfect" film has been discovered by a UK academic. The research will be used to assess the potential success of possible film sponsorship deals.
Apparently, the perfect feature must have: action 30pc, comedy 17pc, good v evil 13pc, love/sex/romance 12pc, special effects 10pc, plot 10pc and music 8pc
"
Where Lucas got it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Episode I and II clearly messed up the forumla.
Until of course (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps not perfect (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel that if this is taken too seriously, it will kill creativity and churn out only repetitive titles, rather than the current 1%-5% originality that exists in major motion pictures today
Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
-psy
Missing element (Score:5, Insightful)
Blatent Product Placement
Oh, by perfect film, does he mean in the perspective of the film-goer vs. the film financiers? oops
Anyone else feel that the Matrix Reloaded Heineken commercial just makes the Matrix franchise appear "cheap"?
age difference (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How about.... (Score:2, Insightful)
What? And make people think?
That's crazy talk. Next you'll be expecting them to start reading books again. And that could lead to thinking, and no one wants that...
um, hype? (Score:2, Insightful)
Only testing blockbusters (Score:2, Insightful)
This can't be good for... (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine that.
-Rusty
This is like (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway this seems to be the formula for a movie that will please everyone, much like the joke. I think that the relatively small amount of plot reflect the intelligence of our society. 10pc of society want plot 30pc want action. That's the way this has to be interpreted. So if you make a movie with this formula it wont be a smash super hit like Star Wars or Matrix or LotR. But it wont suck. People who see it will say "that was an ok movie".
Re:Good grief! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. Remember, this "study" (and I use the term loosely
Which happens.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It'll happen again, it always does. I hope they use this formula, because it'll spawn another chrisis just like the one in the early 70's after everybody gets their fill of our generation's "Paint Your Wagon".
Three cheers for this study! (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously. Jesus... What more can I say? This is just going to provide more evidence to the production houses responsible for the cinematic toxins that clog up our screens every weekend that their formula is not only economically but artistically valid, providing even less incentive to produce movies requiring anything other than open eyes to watch. Great.
Incidentally, I'm not a great nostalgia freak, but one or two examples aside, haven't films got much, much worse over the last year or two or what?
Re:Perhaps not perfect (Score:3, Insightful)
I think from the perspective of the execs funding movies, the "safest" film is the perfect film...
Re:Where Lucas got it wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Likewise, I don't direct films professionally, but I can tell that Star Wars I and II were awful. Can't you?
Pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
Wars ------ 2
Killed ---- 5
Wounds ---- 3
Legs ------ 2
Arms ------ 1
Wives ----- 2
Children -- 6
-------------
Total ---- 21
Re:Good grief! (Score:2, Insightful)
Take your snooty, elitist, poseur-intellect crap elsewhere.
Arrogance and poor understanding of IQ. (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Is that so? This is nothing but unfounded arrogance and propaganda. You fancy yourself well ahead of the curve (doesn't really matter whether you've been tested or not, so please don't tell me your score) and as such like to believe that all those who share your interests are well ahead of the curve as well. What makes you think that there is a correlation between being able to read and sign up on a website and intelligence? Not to mention the fact that the so-called Intelligence Quotient only measures logical problem solving and mathematical insight, a very tiny fraction of what could reasonably be considered intelligence. Or, as it has been put glibly many times before: It only measures your ability to do well on IQ tests. At a guess I would say that it is probably likely that the Slashdot crew would average above the norm on IQ tests (maybe 120 or so) seeing as a large proportion are programmers and that is a field where logical problem solving is an important skill. But what we are talking about here is appreciation of the arts. I won't argue that this may be a function of intelligence, but it is certainly not a function of the IQ type of intelligence.
2. This "successful movie formula" is geared for the masses, i.e., people with an IQ of approximately 100 or so.
IQ is statistically defined such that the mean is exactly 100.
I know that this post sounds dangerously like a flame, but the spreading of this IQ propaganda really irks me.
Self-fulfilling prophecy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Whahhh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely disagree. Different films/works can work for different reasons. Some can work entirely without plot, and instead rely simply on character development and/or other methods.
The Thin Red Line is one such example. No plot, very little character development -- just characters "reflecting" for more than two hours. It works, in its own way, regardless. Jaws is an even better example. The plot is simply "Shark terrorizes beach community" -- the power of the film comes from an intense atmosphere and mood - not plot.
To use another mainstream example, the film GhostBusters was at its best when it was unconcerned with plot - when it just followed these characters through their daily lives as they, of all things, trapped ghosts. The film did not get its energy from the unnecessary and predictable "save the world" plot tacked on.
The best Bret Easton Ellis books work similarly. "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" have minimal to not plot, yet are very good, fascinating books.
Re:Good grief! (Score:4, Insightful)
Relax man, I liked Lord of the Rings, I assure you. Put down the pitchfork.
My point was simply that this study was trying to determine why certain movies succeed and why others do not -- not determine what makes a quality movie. What makes a quality movie, after all, is in the eye of the beholder. You cant scientifically calculate what makes a film quality -- but you can determine which elements combine to make commercially successful, widely-loved films. Make sense?
And for the record, I am entitled to my opinion.. and ranking Fast and the Furious as the 114th best movie makes me cringe. That is all. Thank you.
Re:Good grief! (Score:3, Insightful)
*action 30pc - lots of action here. The movies focus on the fighting even more than the books. In fact, the movies even add fighting scenes that were not present though could be reasonably inferred (the attack by worgs in TT). I'd say Peter Jackson achieved this.
*comedy 17pc - "never toss a dwarf", "second lunch" , etc. I don't remember reading these lines. So, the movie script defintely inserted some comedy.
*good v evil 13pc - pretty obviously present in both the books and movies.
*love/sex/romance 12pc - lets add a bigger part for Arwen. And here's a crazy idea - let's make a love triangle with Eowyn to boost the love angle. Clearly some mass-appeal whoring going on here.
*special effects 10pc - lots of special effects in the movies. Check.
*plot 10pc - I'm not sure how plot is measured according to the study, but it is worth noting that the movie cut out a lot of the "talking" bits, such as the Council of Elrond. The "plot" of the movie interesting, suspenseful, but is also pretty straightforward (note, I didn't say bad). It's not the Brothers Karmanzov.
*music 8pc - the music in LOTR is dramatic and excellent. I'd say they got this point licked.
So how does LOTR break the mold of the ideal movie of the study again?
From a cinematographic point of view .... (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of nonsense that unless you are a fan of the books will explain very little about what is going on...
come on... (Score:1, Insightful)
Also how about promotion? A movie could be great but no one will see it if they don't know about it.
This is wrong on so many levels (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good grief! (Score:3, Insightful)
For LOTR, plot takes a hefty lead. It's a matter of story first and foremost.
Action/Special Effects splits for second as they are both heavily intertwined. It is worthy of note however that the special effects in this case aren't for the sake of, "Hey, lookit me, I'm a special effect!" but rather an assist to the nature of the storytelling thus bolstering the plot.
Good vs. Evil is an element of plot, as it is simply a classification of conflict. I can't believe they even separated this out.
Music, Comedy, love/sex/romance fall to the bottom of the scale. Like you say, all the elements are there - but hardly in fitting proportions.
Maybe you enjoyed them in those quantities, which would mean you fit a major portion of the demographic they're attacking with this formula.
Re:Good grief! (Score:1, Insightful)
The never toss a dwarf line was arguably one of the worst lines in any movie ever.
The second lunch line was funny, and helped establish how bumbling the hobbits were.
The whole first movie was quite true to the book, with a lot left out (in order to avoid a 6 hour movie I suppose.) The second movie was a TRAVESTY and it made me mad to watch. For fucks sake Faramir was not a bad guy, why would they portray him like that? The whole point was he was better than his brother. What the fuck was up with the whole possession thing??? Why were we subjected to the whole Arwen dream sequence? Fuck that shit. Wouldn't it have made more sense and made a better cliffhanger to have Frodo captured before the end of the second movie, like is supposed to happen?
I could go on, but whats the fucking point.
Um, Novelty? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Matrix was cool because no one had ever done something like that before. Star Wars (the fourth, er first one) was cool because no one had ever done something like that. And not just science fiction, look at Pulp Fiction and Airplane.
Shannon's Information theorum states that information can be measured on its surprise. We only need to transmit the parts of a signal that we aren't expecting. This is why a black frame compresses down to nothing, while a colorfull photograph is much larger (assuming the same size image.)
The application here is that people are drawn to movies for the novelty. Outside of teenagers (who seem to think everything is new) people aren't going to go to a movie to see the same thing, over and over. I'm dissapointed if a movie is exactly what I expect. On the other hand, a really good movie I will I pay to see twice, just to catch the stuff I missed.
Novelty, is of course, highly subjective, and changes with time. Right now sex isn't all that novel. We have seen it all. Photo-realistic computer graphics are not all that novel, we have seen it all. Ultra-gory war flicks, everyone dies at the end horror flicks, fairy tales, and post-apocalptic hero stories: been there, done that.
Thank you. Have a good day.
All movies will be similar like music today!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
A similar recipe was found years ago for music, and look at the results. A few styles that all sounds the same (within their styles) moving toward lower sales (you buy a sample of 2-3 CDs any more is just more of the same), unhappy customers looking to sample for free before getting scre** on buying more of the same,
This is the future of movies. No more "My big fat Greek" and no more "Blaire witch". Not that I liked them, I just welcomed the diversity and originality.
Re:This can't be good for... (Score:3, Insightful)
By comparison, Titanic, the #1 grossing film of all time, made £118m in the UK. Taking a look at the all-time best [boxofficemojo.com] at the box office in the UK, we see that Toy Story 2 comes in at a paltry #7, with nearly half of what The Full Monty brought in despite its blatant disregard for the formula presented. Any sane studio exec (I know that's saying a lot, but I assume there must be some) is going to look at her data, and then look at box office grosses for the top films, and decide she's full of shit. I also found it amusing that her research was sponsored by Diet Coke.
As per usual, Hemos wastes our time... (Score:1, Insightful)