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How many films get into top festivals with nobody behind them?
I traced the backing behind 3,037 features selected by Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Sundance and Toronto to find out how many got there cold.
21 hrs ago
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Stephen Follows
39
12
10
How accurate are the numbers studios use to greenlight films?
I matched 35 of Sony’s leaked greenlight models to what the films actually earned, and read the emails of the executives who signed them off.
Oct 16
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Stephen Follows
17
12
3
Does Film Twitter only share the good reviews?
I tracked 435 wide releases to see which ones had their Rotten Tomatoes score posted by four of the biggest film accounts on X, and which ones didn’t.
Oct 14
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Stephen Follows
20
1
4
How many shots are in the average movie today?
I counted the cuts in 8,770 films from the last century to find out how many shots a movie has now, and how fast we are cutting.
Oct 12
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Stephen Follows
23
2
1
A data-led investigation into the on-screen height of Tom Cruise
How tall does Tom Cruise look in his movies? I measured 8 million frames from 2,000 films to find out whether Hollywood's most famous 5'7" man is…
Oct 7
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Stephen Follows
13
2
Does IMDb undercount the films women go to see?
Films watched mostly by women get less than a quarter of the IMDb votes per cinema-goer. I matched 1,608 films with their real audiences to find out how…
Oct 5
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Stephen Follows
24
5
3
Which films are hardest to predict at the box office?
I set the opening weekend forecast the trades printed for 1,184 American wide releases against what each film took, to see what makes a film hard to…
Oct 2
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Stephen Follows
25
1
September 2026
How long do film distributors last?
I traced the histories of 4,593 distributors across 92 countries to find out how long a distributor typically survives, which year is most dangerous…
Sep 30
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Stephen Follows
26
5
4
Are claims of mid-budget movies disappearing true?
Twelve US states have just ordered the new Paramount / Warner studio to release 30 films a year. I crunched the data on 170,279 films to see what…
Sep 28
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Stephen Follows
28
6
4
How many film festivals pay cash prizes?
I read the current rules of 423 film festivals to find every prize that pays money, how big the pots are, when they fall in the year and what kind of…
Sep 25
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Stephen Follows
13
2
3
Why we stopped going to the movies
How streaming trained audiences to wait—and why Hollywood still needs theaters.
Sep 23
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Daniel Parris
28
12
3
Is the teal and orange look over in movies?
I measured the colour of every shot in 8,135 films, from 1930 to today, to find out when warm faces against cold shadows took over the movies, and…
Sep 21
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Stephen Follows
18
1
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