What Makes a Hit Movie?

WHAT MAKES A HIT MOVIE?

Why are some films hits while others barely even register in the moviegoers mind? Is it all down to advertising and promotion, word of mouth or just plain luck? The answer is that there is never a guarantee that a movie will be a hit and there is definitely no formula to concoct a sure-fire winner at the box office. There are however, five key doctrines that the movie studios follow to give their movie the biggest chance of making money.

1. The Established Fan base

What all movies have to have to be successful is an air of anticipation around the project and nothing provides this more than an already established fan base. Whether they are adaptations of books, comics, plays, computer games or TV shows, to have an audience already in place is a big step towards making your movie a hit. For example, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has recently become the second highest money making movie of all time, why because most of the audience was already there after the worldwide success of J K Rowling's novels. The anticipation for the film was electric guaranteeing a huge box office opening. Warner Bros, the company who produced the movie, where so confident in its success that they opened the film in twenty-four countries around the world on the same day. Once you have that guaranteed audience the studio can start thinking about money spinning sequels and even a franchise, e.g. the James Bond movies and Star Trek.

The established fan base doesn't always deliver the big returns however. Just look at the huge box office failures of movies based on computer games. For every success like last year's Tomb Raider there is a Super Mario Bros or a Street Fighter. The movie based on one of the biggest selling computer games of all time, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within performed so poorly that Square Pictures, the production company that produced the film, has gone out of business. A sequel is no guarantee of success either. Just look at the box office disasters Batman & Robin and Speed 2: Cruise Control.

2. The Star Attraction

Star power alone can build up the anticipation for a movie and the film studios know this. Fans will go and see a movie just because their favourite star is the main name on the poster. Stars like Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Mel Gibson, Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks can guarantee a large opening weekend at the box office just because they are in the movie. This of course comes at a price, as all of these stars can command huge salaries of well over $20 million, which is a huge slice of the movie's budget, as well as percentages of the profits from the film. Upcoming movies like Tom Cruise's Steven Spielberg directed Minority Report and Tom Hanks' Road to Perdition will both have huge box office appeal just because of those two big stars.

Even if a big name star is in the ascendancy but still has the power to demand high wages, a movie's success can be make or break for the Film company producing it. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger still demands wages of over $20 million even though his last three movies End of Days, The Sixth Day and most recently Collateral Damage have all bombed at the US box office. The reason he still gets these large pay packets is his popularity in Asia, South American and Eastern Europe. This means that his movies nearly always make a profit and he can use this as a bargaining tool when thrashing out a contract.

3. Aggressive Advertising

The advertising and merchandising budgets for movies can be almost as much as the film itself cost to make. From trailers to billboards and posters to action figures, everything that can be used to build anticipation for a movie is utilised by the Film Studios. The original Star Wars movie in 1977 was the first to exploit merchandising as a real advertising tool for the promotion of the movie. Since then it seems like every big budget movie is more of an event than just a film. Teaser posters and trailers are now appearing over a year before the actual movie is due for release. Movie companies are even attaching trailers from highly anticipated projects to their smaller budget productions in order to bring attendances up on those films. For example, the Winona Ryder movie Lost Souls had a much larger opening weekend than it should have in the UK because The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings teaser trailer was attached to the beginning of the film.

In modern times a new promotional medium has come into play, the Internet. Nearly every single movie released now has to have a website to accompany the film. Behind the scenes information, trailers, documentaries, posters and fan forums are now integral parts of the modern movie website. The first movie to really utilise this new medium was The Blair Witch Project in 1999. First launched nearly a year before the movie was released, the website covered the back-story behind the film and convinced the reader than the events that the movie showed actually happened. Of course this was just a publicity stunt but the movie went on to become one of the most profitable movie of all time. The film showed the importance of the Internet in advertising and has made it an integral part of the promotional merry-go-round for every possible hit movie.

4. Publicity or Word of Mouth

Whether it is good or bad, publicity is an extremely important way of increasing anticipation for a movie. It could be controversial, scandalous and excessive or positive, reaffirming and over-hyped but as long as it is drawing attention to the movie, film companies will embrace it. Movies have seen their opening weekend box office figures far exceed expectations because of media attention. The recently released Ali G Indahouse gained publicity after Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays Ali G, swore on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. Also demonstrations by Black Community Groups over calls of racism at the film's Premier bought the movie more into the public eye. The result was a UK opening weekend total of Ł3.23 million, a far greater total than anyone expected.

Over the last few years, the power of fan based Internet movie websites has grown to such a point that they can make or break a film. The Ain't it Cool News website, ran by the now legendary Harry Knowles in Austin, Texas came to prominence in 1997 after director James Cameron told the media that his movie Titanic wouldn't have as successful without the support of the site. Previous to the website championing the movie, all the publicity in the media had been extremely negative. Allegations of cast bust-ups, constant script re-writes and a budget that was spiralling out of control made the media come to the conclusion that the movie was going to be another expensive bomb like Waterworld was the year before. This all changed after Knowles started posting very positive reviews of the film which led to a complete turn around in the picture's fortunes. After an average start at the box office, the audience for the picture grew and it went on to become the highest grossing film in movie history. The power of websites can also work against a movie, as Warner Bros' Batman & Robin found out. The film became part of an Internet hate campaign which Warner themselves blames the film's failure upon, not that the movie been absolutely awful had anything to do with of course.

5. Awards

A movie that receives an award can see this lead to substantial increasing in box office takings, especially for a smaller budget movie. Been a winner of a Golden Globe, BAFTA or an Oscar can greatly increasing the appeal of a movie and bring it more to the public's attention. The recently released small budget BBC film Iris has gained attention for the performances of it's lead acting duo of Dame Judy Dench and Jim Broadbent who both received Oscar nominations, with Jim Broadbent taking home the Best Supporting Actor award. 2001 winner of Best Picture at the Oscars, A Beautiful Mind has now taken over $150 million dollars at the US box office alone. A movie about a schizophrenic mathematician isn't the type of movie you'd pitch for box office success, but due to strong performances from Russell Crow and Jennifer Connelly and an award friendly story line, people overcoming a disability, the movie has won a cornucopia of awards thrusting it into the public domain creating a lot of interest.

Pushing a movie as a possible award winner can also backfire. Every year in the US between October and the end of December all the major studios release their possible award contenders. In 2001 we had Ali, A Beautiful Mind, Iris, Monster's Ball and In the Bedroom. All of these gained nominations for various awards but for every successful nominee or winner there are always notable absentees from the lists. The Shipping News starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Dame Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett was noticeably missing from the Oscar nominations even after producers Miramax had spent a lot of money pushing it's award worthiness to Academy voters.

All in all you can never guarantee that a movie is going to be a success, but if you follow one or more of these doctrine you will have a greater success than average.

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