Successful movies: A preliminary empirical analysis

Summary Our findings lend further support to existing, informal evidence that the characteristics of successful films have changed over the past forty years. Moreover, they also suggest that it may well be possible to develop empirical models relating a film's attributes to the likelihood of consumer demand. Unfortunately, such analysis cannot be undertaken without access to more detailed information on the performance and features of individual movies. Given the interesting characteristics of movies as ideal examples of differentiated products and of the institutional arrangements governing their production and distribution, such increased data availability would make this an exceptionally attractive area for applied micro‐economic research.