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Can Movie Reviews Predict Box Office Success?
Positive Reviews Signal Film Will Be A Flop; Negative Reviews — a Hit [ucdavis.edu]:
When one thinks of movie reviews, one might see them as harbingers of success or failure at the box office. Some researchers have previously found that both positive and negative reviews correlate to box office revenues, and the effect of negative reviews diminishes over time.
However, researchers at the University of California, Davis, suggest that is not the case.
Researchers analyzed pre-release commentary and opening weekend box office revenue, turning the impact of movie reviews on its head and revealing an unexpected harbinger of failure phenomenon in the movie industry.
[...]. The study analyzed a plethora of pre-release movie reviews penned by film critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Researchers wanted to see if they could predict a movie's success based on these reviews. As it turned out, the so-called harbingers of failure did exist.
"Interestingly, when these critics penned positive pre-release reviews, they signaled that the movie would be a flop," said Loupos. "Conversely, their negative reviews hinted towards the film being a success. The stronger the sentiment in either direction, the stronger the predictive signal."
[...]. What's more surprising, this pattern persisted even with top critics. Expertise, it seems, does not always lead to accurate predictions, Loupos said. "This surprising outcome challenges the prevailing belief that positive reviews equate to better box office revenues," he said.
[...]. "Our fresh perspective on the role of critics' personalities opens up new avenues in our understanding of the film review space," Loupos remarked. "It's an important acknowledgment that the movie industry is a puzzle of complexity and unpredictability."
Got any good movie recommendations?
Journal Reference:
Loupos, P., Peng, Y., Li, S. et al. What reviews foretell about opening weekend box office revenue: the harbinger of failure effect in the movie industry [open]. Mark Lett 34, 513–534 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-023-09665-8 [doi.org]
