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Computer program claims to predict box office success

A US scientist claims he has written a computer program that will predict …

Professor Ramesh Sharda of the Oklahoma State University claims to have written a software program that can predict, based on data available before a movie's full release, whether or not that film will become a hit.

The program looks at several factors, including the movie's rating, competition from other films at the time of release, strength of the cast, genre, special effects, whether it is a sequel and the number of theatres it opens in. It weighs all these factors using a neural network and predicts whether or not the movie will be a box-office hit. The predictions are sorted into nine categories, from "flop" (less than US$1 million) to "blockbuster" (over US$200 million).

The program was tested on a collection of over 800 existing movies. It correctly placed the movie in the right income category 37 percent of the time, and was within one category higher or lower 75 percent of the time.

Sharda, an expert in information systems, has been working on the model for seven years. He has stated that he is currently in discussions with an un-named Hollywood studio to provide additional funding for a more advanced version of his program.

With huge pressures to maintain or increase revenues each year, both the movie and music industry have been turning to computer scientists to try and predict what will be a hit. But is there a danger that media will become too homogenized as a result of all this statistical prediction? In theory, the opposite could be true, as a non-traditional movie that still scores well on the Predict-o-meterTM might now receive funding, where previously it might not have been able to. However, movies that missed the 75 percent window that could have been huge hits may now not get made at all. Are we ready for a future where our entertainment choices are confirmed by numbers coming from a computer program?

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