What does this research mean for the field?

Audience engagement volume is a stronger determinant of a film's return on investment than content characteristics, and production budgets exceeding $25 million are associated with diminishing investment efficiency. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.CHALLENGES_CONSENSUS.

What question did this study set out to answer?

Identify the key observable film- and audience-level characteristics that determine whether a film achieves above- or below-median return on investment.

August 30, 2026International Journal of Financial StudiesOpen Access

Audience Engagement or Production Scale? Determinants of Film Return on Investment in the Motion Picture Industry

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Authors

MEMurat ErdoğanAkdeniz University NANesrin AlkanAkdeniz University EEEda Oruç ErdoğanAkdeniz University

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Implication

Machine learning analysis reveals audience engagement and budget dictate return on investment across 3,153 films, indicating audience reach outweighs production scale.

Key Points

Identify the key observable film- and audience-level characteristics that determine whether a film achieves above- or below-median return on investment.
Evaluated a dataset of 3,153 films released between 1916 and 2017 sourced from The Movie Database.
Benchmarked ensemble learning algorithms (Random Forest, XGBoost, and CatBoost) to model return on investment using classification and continuous-outcome specifications.
Utilized SHAP-based feature attribution to identify variable importance, effect directions, and non-linear thresholds.
Random Forest demonstrated the strongest predictive performance, identifying audience engagement volume (total vote count) and production budget as the joint primary determinants of investment efficiency.
SHAP decomposition revealed non-linear threshold effects, with production budget contributions diminishing beyond approximately $25 million USD, linking higher expenditure to lower investment efficiency.
Film genre accounted for relatively little variation in investment outcomes after controlling for financial scale and audience visibility.

Cite This Study

Erdoğan et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a93f0696c1a8fb52e79c7df https://doi.org/10.3390/ijfs14090228

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Implication

Machine learning analysis reveals audience engagement and budget dictate return on investment across 3,153 films, indicating audience reach outweighs production scale.

Audience Engagement or Production Scale? Determinants of Film Return on Investment in the Motion Picture Industry

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Audience Engagement or Production Scale? Determinants of Film Return on Investment in the Motion Picture Industry

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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