How To Achieve The $1 Billion Box Office Gross

Since 2010 about 4 500 major studio movies have been made. Only 19 of them grossed over $1 billion at the Box Office. That's a very small number so I decided to investigate exactly what these 19 films got right. In this article I looked at everything from the impact of MPAA rating to movie length / running time on a film's performance. You can find the full analysis on the link below:

www.chinozproductions.com
 
Kind of a disappointing read.

For an article to break down top grossing films, I would have expected more than the zero words that diagnosed business end. No mention of marketing, budget of said films and no breakdown into the names and/or franchise names that may have attracted such numbers or even a whiff of where the money came from and the difference of genre's. A little further analysis into whether the blockbusters were outliers like Jaws, Star Wars or Titanic or whether they were within the realm of expected results and how they compared to others within that genre and why.

Stephen Follows usually does these kind of articles well. Might be worth taking a look if you're going to continue doing this: https://stephenfollows.com/blog/
 
Kind of a disappointing read.

For an article to break down top grossing films, I would have expected more than the zero words that diagnosed business end. No mention of marketing, budget of said films and no breakdown into the names and/or franchise names that may have attracted such numbers or even a whiff of where the money came from and the difference of genre's. A little further analysis into whether the blockbusters were outliers like Jaws, Star Wars or Titanic or whether they were within the realm of expected results and how they compared to others within that genre and why.

Stephen Follows usually does these kind of articles well. Might be worth taking a look if you're going to continue doing this: https://stephenfollows.com/blog/

Go back under your bridge, troll. amos obviously put a lot of work into this article, and it is highly informative. Are you incapable of offering constructive criticism?

Thank you for sharing this terrific article, amos!

EDIT: I'd be really curious to see your IMDB credits, Sweetie.
 
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All the giant films were non-Franchise (second list). Virtually all the 'modern' films were franchise.

So many special effects or cartoon films in the first list. Wow.
 
Thank you for sharing this terrific tutorial, amos!

You're welcome, and thank you Cracker Funk.

All the giant films were non-Franchise (second list). Virtually all the 'modern' films were franchise.

Wow, gorillaonabike, I hadn't even noticed that. You're right, none of the films in the top 10 highest grossing list of all time were franchise movies. That's very interesting. Probably Avatar 2 will break this stat but we can only speculate.

I'll update the article with this finding.
 
it is highly informative

Cracker, two questions.
a) Which part do you find highly informative?
b) Why do you do this to yourself? I'm expressing my opinions and you find a way to push your own buttons. I hope you're not picking another fight so you can go and cry victim. Dude, take another breather. Learn from your past mistakes. Bury your anger and let it go.
 
You're welcome, and thank you Cracker Funk.



Wow, gorillaonabike, I hadn't even noticed that. You're right, none of the films in the top 10 highest grossing list of all time were franchise movies. That's very interesting. Probably Avatar 2 will break this stat but we can only speculate.

I'll update the article with this finding.

This is not correct:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens: $2,068.2
should be on that list. It looks like you used a list that dates from before TFA :P

Also: Doctor Zhivago is an adaptation from a book from 1957 that landed the writer a Nobel Prize (!!!!) for Literature in 1958. So there was a fanbase.

Gone with the wind is also an adaptation. The book won a Pulitzer Price.

The Ten Commandments are also part of a franchise: the Bible is the best selling book of all times and it has many fans.

Snow White is an adaptaton of the known fairytale.

So, if we consider Avengers part of the Marvel franchise, because of the comics then those adaptations can also be considered part of a franchise, eventhough that word might not have been used back then :P
All you can say is that there is only 1 sequel in the list.

Sweetie is dissappointed, because these statistics break down all kind of similarities inside those movies or release dates that are not exclusive for those movies.
And the OP neglected the influence of marketing or franchise in this article. (I'm not saying the OP did no effort. The data is just not enough to draw real lessons from it.)
So, yes: nice statistics, but not groundbreaking info that will lead to making a billion.
(That the animations are aimed at children is no surprise..)

Making a PG-13 movie of over 2 hours with mainly sunny weather and releasing it on December 19th is not a recipe for success. These are just often used ingredients in the mix. With some data mining you can probably find dozens of movies that fall within these parameters, but never made their money back.
 
This is not correct:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens: $2,068.2
should be on that list. It looks like you used a list that dates from before TFA :P

Wrong. Inflation has occurred since the last top 10 list was released so Star Wars: The Force Awakens still won't make this list.

Also: Doctor Zhivago is an adaptation from a book from 1957 that landed the writer a Nobel Prize (!!!!) for Literature in 1958. So there was a fanbase.
Gone with the wind is also an adaptation. The book won a Pulitzer Price.
Snow White is an adaptaton of the known fairytale.

Adaptation & Franchise are 2 different things. Clearly you don't know what you're talking about.

The Ten Commandments are also part of a franchise: the Bible is the best selling book of all times and it has many fans.

You're an idiot. Go troll somewhere else.
 
Just because Cracker accused Sweetie of trolling, that doesn't mean you should starts accusing others of it too. I don't think anybody would consider Walters post to be trolling.

While a franchise and an adaptation my be different things, they both come with a pre existing fan base. That gives them both a significantly greater chance of success, in comparison to original IP's.
 
TFA will probably be on this list, but where it lands will depend on the calculation. The numbers you are using are from a 2014 chart. Inflation usually works around 3% a year, and it would need to have raised 10% over two years for it to not make the list. It's also worth noting that it made that in less than one year, whereas Gone With The Wind is over 70 years of theatrical re-releases. Pretty impressive any way you slice it!

That aside, and just looking at the numbers that you have, it is correct to say that none of them were franchise films (though Star Wars and Jaws were followed by sequels). But to WalterB's point, of the top 10, 6 are adaptions of previous works, 1 is based (albeit loosely) on a historcal incident. Only three are entirely original and they're all sci-fi. And even there, Avatar and Star Wars lean heavily on narrative and tropes from previous works. Beacause if you're doing something new, it helps to give people something familiar to lean on, as it were. ET is the odd man out here and well done, since it was originally written as a horror movie!

The only conclusion I can draw from that is having an established fanbase to draw on is good, getting a good story is good, and if not, you can often fall back on spectacle. But WalterB's other point, even with this there are dozens, if not hundreds of films that fit that formula but do not cross that one billion line. Interesting to think about though!
 
Just because Cracker accused Sweetie of trolling, that doesn't mean you should starts accusing others of it too. I don't think anybody would consider Walters post to be trolling.

When somebody uses the bible as evidence for a franchise, he's clearly a TROLL. I don't mind meaningful criticism but this kind of stupidity? No thanks.
 
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Well, The Bible has many readers that value it greatly and it has inspired thousands of artworks, stage plays, songs and movies. The Ten Commandments didn't get that success because it is original IP, but because it brought the story of Mozes to life in a way that way spectacularly unprecedented in cinema.
If I somehow insulted you with using the word franchise: my apologies.

If you take away all the emotional and religious connotations you could argue that both the Bible and i.e. Marvel comics have inspired (fan)artists to create art, people to come together to discuss the content and the creation of movies.
I'm not saying they are the same, I'm just taking a disconnected helicopter view and look at the similarities.
The big difference is that nobody has to pay the writer of the Bible to make a movie out of it.

And by no means I am trolling. I don't even troll H44 :P
I may have used the word franchise a bit too wide, but as Josh has put it: only 3 are original IPs.
And indeed 2 of them use the classic Hero's Journey as discribed by Campbell to create a compelling story.

Based on your numbers TFA should in the list, since it's numbers are higher than the number 10.
Unless you correct the numbers for inflation: neither you or me can tell who is wrong or right.
Maybe it ends up number 11.
We can only tell if you use a list that is updated to 2016. I couldn't tell from which year your list was. All I saw was that the numbers suggest TFA should be in the list.
 
TFA will probably be on this list, but where it lands will depend on the calculation. The numbers you are using are from a 2014 chart. Inflation usually works around 3% a year, and it would need to have raised 10% over two years for it to not make the list.

The top 10 list is from the Guinness book of world records so yes, it's possible TFA might make the list when it gets updated, but it's also possible that it won't. We'll just have to wait and see. Even so, the fact that only 2 of the movies were written by the same person won't change.
 
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When somebody uses the bible as evidence for a franchise, he's clearly a TROLL. I don't mind meaningful criticism but this kind of stupidity? No thanks.

WalterB is the complete opposite of a troll. Though I don't agree with his assertion that The Ten Commandments (the movie) is part of a franchise, I'm quite confident that he's only trying to add to the discussion on movies, and not at all trying to inject the Christian faith into it, other than to point out the fact that Christian films have proven to be very profitable.
 
Wrong. Inflation has occurred since the last top 10 list was released

They should rank tickets sold, like in music, a Platinum record is 1,000,000 sold. Record sales work for posterity, box office, not so much.

Instead, some charts adjust for inflation.

Really, on opening day, wouldn't you like to know how many people went? Not the gross? Ticket prices even fluctuate greatly by area.
 
Originally posted by IndieTalk:
Really, on opening day, wouldn't you like to know how many people went? Not the gross?

Yes! This always drives me crazy, especially when you're comparing current movies with oldies that were huge successes, like Gone With The Wind.
 
Kind of a disappointing read.

Sweetie, the way that you opened your response to the OP is exactly my answer to your questions for me. You actually did make some valid points about how the OP's analysis is incomplete, but there's such a better way of doing that, one which doesn't involve shutting down the OP in your opening statement.

Back to the conversation, yes I'm with IT and mlesemann in wanting to see how many butts were in seats on opening night, not just $gross. I'd also be really curious to see which movies get the most return-viewers vs. those that have legs with new viewers.
 
there's such a better way of doing that, one which doesn't involve shutting down the OP in your opening
I don't believe in blowing smoke up the ass of people. You do them no favors. Rewarding effort and mediocrity is a dangerous path.


Sweetie is dissappointed, because

Partly. I fell victim to my own slack work. The largest reason I'm disappointed is the article fails to answer its own objective. "How to achieve the billion box office gross". While it was obvious that he put in effort, it also felt careless. It felt like an excuse to make pretty internet graphs, to show off and hope no one noticed. I noticed. Walter noticed.

I can live with a writer who shoots and misses. Even bad or wrong ideas can lead to great ideas.
Great writers are bold. They have their opinions. They come to their conclusions and aren't afraid to share them.

The conclusion was basically, if you don't have sunny skies, if it's not pg-13 and isn't over 2 hours long, you won't hit the billion mark. That'd be great if your aim was to show how not to hit the billion mark.

Did you test your supposition?

Lets assume your lazy supposition is worth taking a few minutes to take a look and see if you've identified a pattern.

Lets look at the first movie that caught my eye. Guardians of the Galaxy. 2hr 1 min, PG-13 and sunny skies and no billion. Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, Interstellar, The Martian, Ternimator Genisys, Warcraft, Pacific Rim, Independence Day Resurgence and more all fall within these parameters and fall short of the 10 figure mark.

Don't forget the context. This is an article on his website for his production company. I would assume the purpose of these kinds of articles is to generate some level of professional standing, so clients are more inclined to hire him.

With this in mind, would you be more or less inclined to hire his company?

The site I linked, Stephen Follows does a great job on his website. His analysis is highly regarded and as such has garnered himself work through it. These is a reason I linked it. If he's going down this path to increase business, I'd hope he would be invested enough to do it well.

It saddens me that too many users are happy to give and receive a good smoke blowing. The independent film community needs to stand up and support others to improve so we can all earn a living from this industry. Accepting BS excuses and repetitively patting each other on the back for mediocre effort does no one any favors. It's time for tough love. We need to stop enabling and start with some real support. It's time to encourage others to raise the bar.

/Release the Lynch Mob
 
Kind of a disappointing read.

Would you ever start a conversation like that in real life? If a real life colleague asked you to check out their website, and then the next day you see them at work, would the very first words out of your mouth be "kind of a disappointing read"?!

I don't think you would. Because if that were the case, you wouldn't have a career.

There is a person on the other side of that computer. You can still deliver the point you want to make without tearing them down. Being civil is not tantamount to blowing smoke up anyone's asses.

What you really seem to misunderstand, Sweetie, is that this website is about building each other up, not tearing each other down. If you can't get on-board with that, you're going to have a difficult time fitting in here.

amos -- what is the goal you wish to achieve by releasing this very well-researched data? Is there a next step?
 
I don't think you would. Because if that were the case, you wouldn't have a career.
It saddens me that you're more concerned with style over substance. Teams don't bring me in for my charming personality. I'm brought in for what I can do and the types of teams I work well with. It's working for me.

If your style is getting you lots of work and sending your career in the right direction, keep at it. Why change a winning formula.

I don't understand when some filmmakers, cast and crew prefer you to waste their time with lies instead of getting to the point, being a straight shooter.

Being civil
What you call being civil, I call being an enabler. It'd be like me saying to you, "Yeah sure Cracker, make another feature film." That's not being civil, that's enabling you. Until you start to learn the lessons from your previous efforts, in good conscious, I won't knowingly send you or encourage you in the wrong direction. It's malicious.

This is different from knowing that you've made the decision to make another feature film. I can still wish you the best with your project without enabling your false expectations. You won't hear me enabling you.
 
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