Each week I look at a different topic around the film industry, focusing on the data and statistics which reveal what’s going on.
Screenwriter and writing community hero John August posed a question on Twitter a couple of days ago. He was surprised to find that some major movies are not available to stream or buy in the US, despite their clear value and audience interest. He asked people to add any other movies they find which fit his criteria (i.e. top […]
Between filmmakers and film audiences lie a complex network of middlemen, distributors and sub-distributors. They play a vital role in the film value chain, ensuring that films are available all over the world in all manner of formats to all types of audiences. This side of the industry is less visible than most other aspects, for […]
Today’s topic is one I’ve had on my ‘to do’ list for a while and it took the help of four students to gather all the data. We looked at the key dates behind Hollywood studio movies in order to work out roughly how long the average Hollywood movie takes to make. We built a […]
Each week over the last five years, I have been covering different aspects of the film industry, explaining and illustrating how they function. Next month, I’ll carry on with my new research but for this month I would like to stop and zoom out a little. By taking detailed data dives each week it’s easy to miss the […]
Last week’s media news was dominated by the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by the Walt Disney Corporation. There’s no doubt that this represents a huge shift in the dynamics of Hollywood as ‘The Big Six’ (studios) become ‘The Big Five’. How the two mega-companies will work together in practice won’t be known for a while […]
When new filmmakers think about their movie reaching audiences, they tend to picture its cinema release, or maybe what it will look like when it hits DVD shelves. Few fantasise about their movie’s first ever television broadcast. Despite this, television is the largest source of revenue for movies. This means that the total amount paid by […]
How many times have you seen a new movie poster and thought ‘That looks just like the poster for [another movie]”? I’m guessing… pretty often. Movie poster designers don’t seem worried about their work feeling derivative and often they are actually counting on your sense of déjà vu to promote their new movie. So it’s […]
Every few weeks, there is a news story about a new challenge to the traditional distribution model for movies. The latest of these was the announcement last week that the new Shaft reboot would be using the hybrid release strategy. In the US, it will follow the usual movie release pattern (i.e. theatrical release followed by delayed release […]
Last week I shared my research into movie posters, in which I used facial recognition to track the emotions displayed on the faces of the lead actors. Today I thought I would follow another thread made possible by this method and look at the brands of some major Hollywood actors. When deciding what movie to watch, we […]
Last week, I took a look at the length of film trailers. I found that the average trailer runs for 114 seconds, and the longest trailers belong to documentaries and historical films. As I was conducting that research, another question occurred to me – how early are trailers released? I still remember as a […]
