Turning the silver screen to gold: An analysis of opening weekend box office success

Abstract

Success at the box office can be difficult to predict. While one combination of
stars, budget, or praise produces a blockbuster, the slightest tweaking in a sequel can
produce a bomb. The objective of this research is to model the opening weekend box
office revenue per screen based on a set of variables parsed from the Internet Movie
Database and using a critical review index variable retrieved from Rotten Tomatoes.com.
First, the author estimates opening weekend revenue per screen from a sample of 1116
movies as a function of the movies' characteristics, such as genre, MP AA rating, critical
rating, and budget. Then the author takes a random sample of the data set and models
opening weekend revenue per screen with several additional variables. Results from the
full sample indicate production budget, Rotten Tomatoes Critic Rating, and a prestigious
director significantly increase opening weekend box office revenue per screen. Results
from the random sample indicate that films that were sequels or prequels or that
incorporated a significant advance in special effects also had higher opening weekend
revenues per screen on average. Surprisingly results from the random sample also
showed that films which included adult content or which were distributed by one of the
big six distributors did not have significantly different opening weekend revenue per
screen than those that did not.

Date of Award	2011
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Linda Ghent (Supervisor)