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Do movie critics' reviews matter to the success or failure of a movie's box office success? According to a study released today by Copernicus, a global marketing strategy and research firm, the answer is a resounding no.

"What critics think about a movie," according to Dr. Kevin J. Clancy, CEO of Copernicus, "is surprisingly unrelated to domestic box office sales." In fact, he explains, the correlation is negative. "What critics believe is great doesn't necessarily ring the box office registers. While what critics think is bad may have tremendous upside potential."

Copernicus is engaged by many firms including Pepsi, Exxon-Mobil, IBM, Merck, Pfizer, Clorox, and Universal Studios to help them understand and manage factors contributing to marketplace success. Its work in the entertainment industry led Clancy to examine the role of movie critics in driving box office sales.

Key findings include:

• Movies praised by critics tend to perform poorly at the box office. Indeed, 8 of the 10 most highly rated movies of 1999, including "Election," "The Dreamlife of Angels," "Being John Malkovich," "All About My Mother" and "Boys Don't Cry," were all domestic box office duds. Part of the explanation is that many critically acclaimed movies are foreign films and small independent films which do not enjoy wide-spread distribution. Distribution alone, however, does not explain why so many favorably reviewed films did so poorly - it would appear that tastes of the average movie-goer are very different from that of movie critics.
• Bad reviews from critics do not keep moviegoers away. "Wild, Wild West," "The General's Daughter," "Big Daddy," "Double Jeopardy," and "The Mummy" were among the worst rated movies of the year, and yet were commercial successes, each doing $100 million or more at the box office.
• Movie critics are occasionally right. They loved "Toy Story 2". It was ranked #3 by critics and grossed $241 million in sales. Critics also loved "American Beauty". It was ranked #8 by critics and surpassed $100 million at the box office.
• Few, if any, critics seem to be in touch with how the market will respond to a movie. Some of them appear to be powerful "reverse predictors" of marketplace performance. Movies negatively reviewed by Janet Maslin of NY Times and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone for example, seem to do quite well while movies they loved don't do well at all.

How the study was conducted

Copernicus analyzed the 100 most noteworthy films of 1999, gathering reviews on each movie from 15 nationally prominent movie critics: Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun Times , Joe Morgenstern of The Wall St. Journal, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, David Ansen of Newsweek, Kenneth Turan of LA Times, Mike Clark of USA Today, Manohla Dargis of LA Weekly, Glenn Kenny of Premier Magazine, Todd McCarthy of Variety/Daily Variety, Leonard Maltin of Entertainment Tonight, Janet Maslin of NY Times, John Powers of Vogue, Carrie Rickey of Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone and Richard Schickel of Time.

Each reviewer rated films on a five point scale, a five being "a must see" movie (four stars); a four being "strongly recommended" (three stars); a three being "a recommended" movie (two stars); a two being a "not recommended" (one star), and a one representing a movie that "should be avoided". The source of the movie reviews was Alex Lewin of Premiere Magazine.

A variety of statistical tools was then used to examine the relationship between the movie reviews and box office sales performance, one of them being simple correlation analysis. Correlation coefficients were calculated and scaled from -1.0 indicating a perfect negative relationship to +1.0 indicating a perfect positive relationship.

Taking into account all of the films and all of the reviewers, what was discovered was a weak negative relationship (-. 11) between critics' recommendations and box office performance. This means that the relationship is in the opposite direction of what might have been predicted - movies that critics reviewed most positively generally did poorly at the box office. This was not only true for foreign and independent films but for major studio productions as well.

This study is part of an ongoing series of analyses on the predictors of box office sales undertaken by Copernicus: The Marketing Investment Strategy Group. (Additional study results below.)

Source: Copernicus

Source: Copernicus

Source: Copernicus

Key Findings:

There is no significant relationship between what critics think of a film and domestic box office sales. What critics think about a film appears to have no impact on box office success.

Movies negatively reviewed by critics were somewhat more likely to be strong box office performers than weak ones (almost 4 out of 10 films negatively reviewed did $75 million or more in terms of box office sales).

This reinforces the findings from the correlation analysis - if there is any relationship between film critic evaluation and box office performance, it tends to be negative rather than positive.

For more information, contact:

Ami Bowen, Director of Corporate Communications
(617) 449-4200 or ami.bowen@copernicusmarketing.com

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