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Wolves in the Number Cruncher’s Hen House

Commentary by Team Tao Jonez

Posted: October 5, 2009

Bigger Picture Research recently featured Lifting the lid on studionomics - an insightful discussion by Dr. Jim Barratt about the famous Goldman rule that “nobody knows anything.”  The article points out that the screenwriter laureate’s axiom was intended to underscore Hollywood’s inability to reliably predict the success or failure of any specific film.  A former Head of Research & Statistics at the respected UK Film Council and now author of Bad Taste about Peter Jackson’s debut feature (Wallflower Press, December 2008), Dr. Barratt further affirms: “Goldman’s observation is unarguably true, and the reasons are plain enough.  For one thing, film resides at the intersection of art and commerce, where our understanding of common-or-garden market economics is unsettled by the ineffable vagaries of creativity on the supply side, and audience whim on the demand side.”

As is usual at Bigger Picture Research, apt expression reflects cogent comprehension.

We at Marquee Stars completely concur with Dr. Barratt.  We side with Goldman for the numbers debate.  Our Package Calculator, for example, has never performed better than 70% predictive of actual film performance outcomes and only within a very narrow range of assumptions and maximal margins of error.  (The calculator is actually intended for the limited function of comparing the relative box office strengths of different package combinations.)

In our opinion, beginning with the invasion of Hollywood by the mega-corps, the entertainment business has evolved along increasingly dysfunctional lines.  Studio bosses and distribution execs have developed an unconscious addiction for the data wranglers and trend spotters in ways that stifle creativity … much of it unnecessary and, frankly, not sufficiently supported by the data … at least not to the extent that their numerical parameters are enforced.

Many executives see the business akin to a Vegas casino: They know the numbers can be dead wrong for any single project but, over the long haul, as long as they follow the number crunchers most of the time, they believe they will be playing with the house.  Ironically, most filmmakers are in denial about how oppressive the rule by numbers has become. First, like Marquee Stars, they abhor the whole idea; and second, they encounter numeric oppression only when their funders force them to build a marquee from a very short list of acceptable “names”, or when their projects do or don’t get the anticipated negative pick-up deal, pre-sales or MGs.

Imagine anarchists elected to the White House, punk rockers living at 10 Downing Street, or wolves nesting in the hen house.  In such visions you have Team Tao Joenz at work with the numbers.  We do it fairly and honestly; we do it using corroborated data; but we do it as a skeptical double-check on the mind-numbing pronouncements we hear from studio bureaucrats, territorial film buyers and foreign sales agents.

Certainly, a Steven Spielberg or a Brad Pitt can easily push past the unreasonable demands of the statistical gurus, but not the guys in the middle or at the bottom of the desirability pyramid.  Too often, promising careers crash and burn for reasons beyond a filmmaker’s artistic merit … all because an anonymous analyst turned up a temporarily negative metric.  Marquee Stars exists for the victims of the number addicts … to help shine light on a few of these practices … to identify unfairly overlooked talent … to forearm their reps with some counter-information with which push back … and to enable them the better to pathfind beyond the troubled terrain.

At a minimum, for decision-makers, our Appraisal Guide provides a comprehensive international list of active talent sorted by surname and by prominence.

Nobody knows anything; but the Appraisal Guide is a little something.