Inclusion at the cost of Generalization

[Umbran]

There ARE formulas. They’re not guarantors of success, but they DO give you an idea of your odds of success.

Not really. While such analyses can’t tell you which toy is going to be the next Beanie Baby, it can tell you what might.

I mean, sure, if you want to walk it back from ccs's assertion, that's fine.

I have a formula that is not terribly accurate and tells me what might happen. And I end up spending millions of dollars on a flop anyway. Not much of a formula, there, if you ask me.

You two have not put a significant dent in "there is no accounting for taste". Sorry.

 

[Hussar]

Trying to beat yourself up over someone else's life experiences is nothing but a shortcut to stress, unhappiness, and an early grave.

Wow. That's not tone deaf at all.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I mean, sure, if you want to walk it back from ccs's assertion, that's fine.

I have a formula that is not terribly accurate and tells me what might happen. And I end up spending millions of dollars on a flop anyway. Not much of a formula, there, if you ask me.

You two have not put a significant dent in "there is no accounting for taste". Sorry.

Oh, I agree with the assertion of “no accounting for taste”. But we’re talking about the differences between hard and soft sciences here.

The formulas in the field of marketing research are correlative and predictive. But ultimately, those models are built on the chaos of human consciousness- a shaky substrate at best.

So, for instance, Hollywood knows the stats on which stars have the biggest draw, broken down by markets, sex and other demographics. They know which directors historically best handle certain styles of movies. They know which months are better for releasing certain kinds of films.

And yet, they can have movies that look good on paper turn into colossal flops for all kinds of reasons- bad performances, subject fatigue, a similar movie getting released first, a scandal...

The same kind of analysis shows up to a greater or lesser extent in commercial music, broadway musicals, and other big entertainment fields.

 

[Umbran]

And yet, they can have movies that look good on paper turn into colossal flops for all kinds of reasons- bad performances, subject fatigue, a similar movie getting released first, a scandal...

So, a quick bit of searching finds me the statistic that about 50% of movies make a profit. 50% lose money.

If a coin flip is about equal to the analysis... I'm not really impressed with the analysis.

 

[macd21]

So, a quick bit of searching finds me the statistic that about 50% of movies make a profit. 50% lose money.

If a coin flip is about equal to the analysis... I'm not really impressed with the analysis.

That’s not the result of the analysis. The analysis can tell you what kind of product people will like, but you still need to actually make that product successfully. No amount of market analysis will save a naughty word movie from being a naughty word movie.

 

[Cadence]

So, a quick bit of searching finds me the statistic that about 50% of movies make a profit. 50% lose money.

If a coin flip is about equal to the analysis... I'm not really impressed with the analysis.

In bridge it feels like the common advice is to bid for slam if you have at least a 50/50 chance of making it. Figuring that out requires good bidding. Poor bridge bidding would give you either a much lower % made when you bid it, or a much higher % because you almost never bid it and miss out on a bunch of points. I want to say the reason to do so in bridge is an expected value argument based on the value of making slam vs. going down a little.

In films, if the 50% of losses contribute a much smaller negative than the 50% of profits contribute positive, then if anything maybe they're making too few movies and they could get by with even a smaller percent that were profitable.

Anyway, about picking movies to make

 

[Thirteenspades]

That’s not the result of the analysis. The analysis can tell you what kind of product people will like, but you still need to actually make that product successfully. No amount of market analysis will save a naughty word movie from being a naughty word movie.

Unless people enjoy naughty word movies. I see it all the time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, a quick bit of searching finds me the statistic that about 50% of movies make a profit. 50% lose money.

True. But that’s lumping all movies together, from big budget to small, from studio releases to indie films, plus a lot of other factor besides.

Movies get released for all kinds of reasons, including losing money intentionally for tax write offs. Others get released because the studio is trying to recoup any of the money they invested. See The Creeping Terror.*

In addition, just because tools exist, doesn’t mean they get used properly...or at all. Not every studio is going to invest in extensive market research for every film. And a great many films are released without research at all. See the entirety of the output of guys like Tommy Wiseau or Uwe Boll.

Not that all of the little films are losers- see Hollywood Shuffle.

Certain genres of film are less likely to make money, as well. Action films and comedies are a more reliable risk for those seeking a reasonable ROI than documentaries.

And then there’s the matter of “Hollywood accounting“. It’s a truism In Hollywood- if you want a share of the profits of a movie you think will be a hit, bargain for a share of the gross, not the net. Coming to America was made for $20m and grossed something like $480m worldwide. On the books, it lost money, and writer Art Buchwald had to sue to get paid. Why? Because there are so many things taken out of the gross for dubiously legal reasons that there is rarely anything left.





* at your own risk! But seriously, if you want to know its sordid tale, ask, and I will reveal.

 

[Thirteenspades]

See The Creeping Terror.*
* at your own risk! But seriously, if you want to know its sordid tale, ask, and I will reveal.

I ask! Please reveal.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I ask! Please reveal.

It’s a TERRIBLE movie. The alien spacecraft was obviously footage of an Americsn rocket launch run in reverse, but with the cell flipped around so the “USA” had a backwards S in it... The monster looked like a bunch of guys under an oriental rug. Some of the people it ate obviously had to push themselves into its maw, it was so slow you could have moonwalked away from it, but few actually managed to escape.

So the executives decided to shelve it.

But after a few years, some bright boy decided that instead of spending money to store it, or simply destroying it, they should release it to recoup some of its production costs.

They found that it had been improperly stored, and large sections of its soundtrack were missing. Instead of taking this as a sign from God or the uncaring cosmos suddenly giving a damn, they spent MORE money re-recording the missing parts.

...without the original actors, instead, opting for some guy to do narrative voiceovers...

...without the script, which had been lost.

Some of that narration sounds like rejected scripts for 1950s social education school films.

It is truly one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, rivaled only by Tommy Wiseu’s The Room.