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The Perfect Formula For Box Office Success
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
"
i always thought it was an equal mix: The Destruction of Property, The Defiance of Authority, and The Removal of Clothing. Someone got paid for this? I'm in the wrong business.
How about 100% porn?
Special effects 10pc?
Episode I and II clearly messed up the forumla.
Did anyone else feel it was an insult to those with intelligence that plot took only an 8% grab?
Gee, I guess that means the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is a tremendous flop, doomed to failure; it's got the whole thing backwards!
Any spoon would be too big.
38% Windows bash.
22% Linux worship.
16% Katz bash.
13% OS penis messuring.
8% punctuation correction.
2% spelling correction.
1% comedy.
1% math correction.
1% sig.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
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"?
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
(Reuters) Further research also produced an Instant Film Generation Algorithm (IFGA). The Perfect Film Formula (PFF) was then programmed into the IFGA and the scientists were delighted to see Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope produced spontaneously.
Viewers of the IFGA/PFF results were astounded and enthralled until someone realized that popcorn hadn't been figured into the PFF. The project was scrapped.
Chris
Why would one use "pc" instead of "%", which is shorter and less confusing ?
No, seriously, that's a real question. Is this some local usage in some part of the world?
...Actors. Big name actors, big name actresses, pop stars, pop starlets, etc. are all going to have a harder time getting those lucrative contracts to be in a new movie now. Their influence on the movie being "perfect" doesen't even show up.
Imagine that.
-Rusty
You never know...
Between Bollywood getting slightly better and Hollywood shovelling out drivel, it seems that there'd be more money in the Bollywood offerings.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Maybe this is the first academic research of it's kind published, but I think it's clear that Holywood has had a good grasp of "the perfect movie formula" for quite some time, just like the music industry has "the perfect pop record" well understood. There are of course exceptions where genuine quality counts, but I'd be prepared to bet that the majority of low grade blockbusters churned out by the big studios come fairly close to this formula.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
that other time. Those British people attempted to find the funniest joke. But the joke wasn't funny. What they found was a joke that would be funny to everybody and anybody. There is no joke that would be hilarious to everyone, so the funniest joke is one which everyone can at least slighly enjoy. I mean, even though I didn't laugh out loud the joke did amuse me. I wish I remember what the joke was and had a link to the site, but oh well.
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".
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
The article didn't really dig into what the research said, so I am somewhat hesitant about the title of my response, but...the fact that the article is scanty never stopped an intrepid Slashdotter from running his mouth, so away we go...
The "perfect film" is obviously highly subjective. From a sentimental standpoint, perhaps it is something like Casablanca. From a producer's standpoint, it may well be "Deep Throat" or "Behind the Green Door" with their respective cost to profit(!) ratios. Artistically, it could be whatever floats your boat. I'm partial to Empire Strikes Back or Unforgiven as my favorite films.
Statistical analysis of elements contained in films is only useful to the extent that the elements are cohesive, well-executed, etc. This all reminds me of the assinine film from the eighties about the robot that wrote a love song based on analysis of popular music, resulting in a meaningless spouting of bubblegum phrases.
Besides, the research only looked at top-grossing films. How much money a film earns is not necessarily a proxy for how "good" it is. It is frequently the result of pimping and media hype. It is quite possible that some of the films which were top grossing lost money (even under sensible non-film industry accounting methods) and were terrible.
The reference article is total fluff coverage and is highly instructive from a media analysis standpoint. You get no analysis of the underlying research. It in fact smells like a press release copped from some idiot researcher which was dumped almost unchanged into a "news" story. The percentage of shit that appears in newspapers that is derived in this exact manner is frightening -- it gains the imprimature of "news" instead of PR and there is no value-added journalism component. Journalists of the world, hang your heads.
Whew. Had to get out my morning rant. I feel much better now. Get me some coffee.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
. fu nniest/
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/10/03/joke
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Search Google for "funniest joke", first item that comes up is the joke in question.
JP
action 1pc
comedy 0pc
good v evil 1pc
love/sex/romance 1pc
special effects 1pc
plot 0pc
music 0pc
water 96pc
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
By the way, LoR has plenty of both, as well as plot...bonus.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
[Silverman draws a standard dog]
Myers: No, no, no! He was supposed to have attitude.
Silverman: Um... wh-what do you mean, exactly?
Myers: Oh, you know, attitude, attitude! Uh... sunglasses!
Lady: Could we put him in more of a "hip-hop" context?
Krusty: Forget context, he's gotta be a surfer. Give me a nice shmear of surfer.
Lady: I feel we should Rasta-fy him by... 10 percent or so.
[the resulting dog is rather... proactive]
[all stare at it w/o any expression]
Myers: Hmm... I think he needs a little more attitude. [Silverman blackens in Poochie's sunglasses]
All Three: [variously] Oh, yeah, bingo. Yeah, that's it! There it is, right there! I love it!
-- Another cartoon character created in less than 15 minutes,
"The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"
1. You read and are a registered member of Slashdot, therefore your intelligence is likely at least 40 points above the average population.
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.
lysergically yours
Oh come on, if a movie isn't 40pc plot it is not worth watching.
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.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
.... Lord of the Rings' plot is dismal.
A lot of nonsense that unless you are a fan of the books will explain very little about what is going on...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
His keyboard '5' key is probably broken. This conjecture is supported by lack of the digit '5' in all the percentages he listed.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Back in the mid-late 90s, a couple of the Hollywood studios put some serious dollars into trying to build a predictive model of film success. Problem is, they couldn't make it work. They could make the model match _prior_ outcomes, but getting it to correctly forecast the success of _future_ films was well-nigh impossible. The project was scrapped, I believe. Given how incredibly valuable a working model like this would be, though, I wouldn't be surprised if the idea keeps making a comeback.