I couldn’t have said it better than this.
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Why do movies fade into the background, end up as laughing stocks, or break box office record after record? The Drunkard’s Walk suggests that it’s all random when he quotes movie executive David Picker. Picker, the man behind responsible for A Hard Day’s Night and The Jerk, once said, “If I had said yes to all the projects I turned down, and no to all the other ones I took, it would have worked out about the same.”
Luck and chance play a role in the cultural market from the outset: A Confederacy of Dunces has been stuck in production purgatory for decades, but Cuba Gooding, Jr. and M. Night Shyamalan have yet to be banned from motion pictures.
Twenty percent of movies account for 75% of revenues, but no one knows which movies will be the cash cows. All we know for sure is that as ads fade into the background, people will still pay attention to word-of-mouth; it’s infinitely easier to block a billboard’s message than your wife’s.
When it comes to promotion, the randomness excuse only gets you so far. Christopher Nolan’s new movie Inception, came with a few built-in measures to keep us talking.
1. People will wait in lines to see movies that don’t have huge marketing budgets if there’s a rollicking argument to be had. Is it the greatest movie ever made, or a pseudo-intellectual excuse for special effects? Even random blog posts inspire long-winded theories, metatheories, and get over 2,000 comments.
2. Don’t fear complexity. It’s what gets people something to chew on afterwards, and inspires them to make charts of the levels, and the characters’ timelines; even a roundup of the discussions has over 400 comments. You can use it to discuss the neuroscience behind movies, or just write more round-ups of the theories. Because we can’t get enough.
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