Why am I writing this blog?

Two reasons:

  1. There isn’t enough (obvious) data analysis being done, publicly, on the film industry.
  2. A number of factors are contributing to a potential move away from movie theaters - which, to me, is a warning sign. I want going to the movies to remain a fundamental piece of our shared cultural experience - not for it to become a luxury (like seeing a Broadway show). From what I can tell, there has to be a way to reverse this trend using intelligent analysis.

In 2013, films released domestically grossed $10.9 billion theatrically - not an insubstantial number, and that only represents the theatrical take - films obviously now travel a lot further than the movie theater. More and more money is being spent to produce films - not only individually, but also in aggregate (or, at the very least, more films are being made), while less people are actually going to the theater to see a movie. This is a real problem for the industry as a whole - how are they going to sustainably make money from film production if there is a glut of films, and people are no longer going to the movie theater? - and for consumers - how do I pick what to watch, and should I really spend $8.35 and drive to the theater to see it?

And while some sites, at the very least, track, rank, and categorize box office data, there’s not a ton of information gleaned from it (though they do have a wealth of data which is steadily maintained - and for that I thank them). One would think that an industry that likely reaches a significant portion of the population - both domestically and internationally - and has done so for at least 90 years (at least in America), would have some understanding, through the data they’ve gathered, what will be successful. And yet, year after year, studios make bad and poorly performing films, and the resulting data is analyzed briefly without historical or other context, and is quickly forgotten.

Given the right data, one can ask and potentially answer interesting, valuable questions that may make a difference in the future of the industry.

For example: In which cities, states, or regions are people more likely to see a movie in a theater? Which movies, genres, or actors are more likely to be watched on Netflix, iTunes, or elsewhere instead of in the theater? Are people still buying DVDs and BluRays, and if so, where and which ones? Are certain theater chains, or specific theaters, selling better than others? Is there anything about the best-selling theaters that makes them successful?

Or, most importantly, for the actual viewers of these films - what should I watch, and how do I watch it?

Unfortunately, I only have a few sets of data to analyze - namely, box office revenue and awards statistics. The goal of this blog will be to determine whether that data has any truly valuable conclusions about the industry or the state of film, or whether there are even more valuable data sets I have yet to find. At worst, it will make for some interesting charts.