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Wikipedia Can Predict Box Office Flops

Posted by Soulskill on from the citation-needed dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "Despite a record year, like every year before it, 2013 remained fraught with its fair share of box office disasters. What if studios could minimize their loses and predict when the next Pluto Nash-level flop was imminent? According to new research published in PLoS One, they may actually be able to. Using data gleaned from Wikipedia articles, researchers measured the likelihood of a film's financial success based on four parameters: number of total page views; number of total edits made; number of users editing; and the number of revisions in the article's revision history, or 'collaborative rigor.'"

14 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Oh great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... because what we REALLY need is more studios taking LESS chances...

    Some of the greatest movies have been box-office flops.

    1. Re:Oh great... by edawstwin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Like it or not, studios are out to make money, not great movies. For all they're concerned, every movie could be a Chipmunks sequel.

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    2. Re:Oh great... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 3, Informative

      Agreed. If this were the case we wouldn't have Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, Blade Runner, Office Space, Donnie Darko, etc.

    3. Re:Oh great... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Like it or not, studios are out to make money, not great movies. For all they're concerned, every movie could be a Chipmunks sequel.

      Exactly. The goal of a movie is to put asses in seats. That's it.

      But that is a silly goal EVEN IF you simply want to maximize profits. It would be better to charge more per seat for good movies and less for bad movies. Also, the price should fall each week as the audience diminishes, to encourage repeat viewers, or to get more "impulse watchers" that are willing to spend $2 but not $12.

      As long as I am on a rant, airlines should also price differentiate their seats. Middle seats should be $20 less than windows or aisles, and your ticket should be at least a few bucks cheaper in the back of the plane.

    4. Re:Oh great... by MyFirstNameIsPaul · · Score: 4, Interesting

      2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars: Episode IV, The Godfather, and many other films from the late 60s and 70s. The film industry was going through a transition where it needed to expand, so it started taking risks, which included creating the parental ratings system and more experimental films. I find it somewhat ironic that they don't seem to be willing to do a 'sequel' to that more experimental, and ultimately successful, period.

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    5. Re:Oh great... by icebike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well bringing the discussion back on point, (I know, I know), how would Wiki predict a flop ahead of time?

      After all, people have to see it, or at least have access to the script, a complete list of cast, production crew, and special effects to even begin to write a stub article on Wiki.

      It would appear TFA addresses none of this. They don't appear to throw out updates and page views that pre-date the actual release date. The look at AFTER-THE FACT data.

      Further, these results could and would be gamed the minute it was revealed anyone was paying attention. The posts prior to casting, shooting, and editing would be from insiders, looking to feather their own nest. There are no actual movie goers involved that early. Usually the script is closely guarded so that even enthusiasts of the book are clueless. Even the actors don't necessarily know how something will turn out, and don't have a concept of the entire film until after its been cut, scored, and edited. That leaves a very small cadre of knowledgeable people who would have anything authoritative to say ahead of time.

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    6. Re:Oh great... by alen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      some of the greatest movies of the 80's were considered crap when they came out. the kids liked them, the kids grew up and now worship them

      the art cycle is
      kids like stuff their parents hate
      its considered crap by important people
      kids grow up and the crap is now art

    7. Re:Oh great... by Firethorn · · Score: 3

      Well bringing the discussion back on point, (I know, I know), how would Wiki predict a flop ahead of time?

      I think it ends up being a bit like Netflix's recommendation system. If you use enough computing power to find even seemingly random correlations, if they hold up for long enough there has to be a common factor somewhere and it can be used to predict with surprising accuracy.

      Of course, the prediction itself will change the end result once companies start using it to alter their own actions.

      It would appear TFA addresses none of this. They don't appear to throw out updates and page views that pre-date the actual release date. The look at AFTER-THE FACT data.

      While it's poorly worded, it looks like they do indeed look at data available during pre-release; wikipedia logging is detailed enough to collect historical pre-release activity after film release so they can look into the past to build their models/look for correlation.

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    8. Re:Oh great... by unitron · · Score: 3, Informative

      In other words, they're a popcorn store selling movie tickets as a loss leader to get you in the door.

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    9. Re:Oh great... by jxander · · Score: 4, Interesting

      12 > 2 ... but 2 > 0 . If the choices are "See a decent movie for full price, or nothing at all" then I'm going to stick with nothing at all. Selling the ticket cheap gets my butt into the theatre, where I might buy popcorn, play some video games, see a trailer for some movie I didn't realize was coming out next weekend... etc

      In reality though, this isn't a movie theatre's decision. The Studios are what drive ticket sales. Disney, Sony, Fox, etc. get nearly 100% of the ticket prices, and sometimes even MORE than 100%. There was a dust-up recently when Disney flexed it's Marvel Muscles, and wanted significantly MORE than $12 per ticket from the theatres, for the rights to show Iron Man 3. This put theatres in a tough spot. They can't exactly say NO. "sorry, we're not showing Iron Man because Disney wanted to put us over a barrel and we stood up for ourselves" So they took the loss and hoped to make up the difference on concession sales. Given that reality, I can't see the Studios agreeing to $2 tickets, when the theatre will make most of the bonus cash from it.

      Can't wait to see what happens when the next Star Wars comes out...

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    10. Re:Oh great... by jxander · · Score: 3, Informative

      Pretty much, yes. There is a LITTLE profit to most tickets, but not much.

      I mentioned above... many theatres sold Iron Man 3 tickets at a significant loss, because Disney is getting monopolistic and the theatres can't really afford to NOT show Iron Man 3. Disney said Bend Over, and the theatres couldn't really argue.

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  2. A little late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Once there's a wikipedia article, with content, and page views, the movie's already made. Not releasing at that point, to avoid losing money on a flop, would only cause more money to be lost. Or am I missing something?

  3. Cue the massive Wikipedia marketing campaigns by rsborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can envision the next Hollywood producer seeing this, and proclaiming that all future productions will outdo each other in each of the relevant wikipedia statistics, even if those million monkey-keystrokes are immediately rolled back by beleaguered wikipedia editors.

    Cargo-cult executive thinking to the rescue!

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  4. Isn't a bit late... by west · · Score: 4, Insightful

    By the time they know it's a flop, isn't a bit late? They've already spent pretty much all the money. At best, it might persuade some theaters to *not* show the movie.

    It doesn't really help to find out that the oncoming light in the tunnel is a train 30 seconds earlier than you might have realized otherwise...