3 ms·

"An inconvenient truth" was one of the better movies I've seen recently. It didn't cost all that much to make and has turned out to be quite profitable. The b

• pchristensen 19y ago
  Bingo. It's hard to predict things like story quality or actor chemistry, so those things are not good investments (from the POV of the studios), even if they can have bigger effects on earnings. This is why so many sequels get made - it takes the unpredictability out of story and screen chemistry. Unfortunately, the only way to find the limit is to beat the story/characters to death. Things that do provide predictable financial returns are: - big stars (basically a marketing expense, although they can affect chemistry in unpredictable ways - see DaVinci Code, The) - visual effects, since given the same story, a pretty movie will do better than an ugly movie. But everyone has chased this one to the point of diminishing returns, and the audience expectation here is through the roof. - production quality (things like editing, lighting, etc) - but this is so universally high quality that it's now more of an expense of doing business than a differentiating quality. Basically, expensive movies tend to do well because studios throw money at areas with more predictable returns. And since the studios have quarterly earnings reports and shareholders, etc, that's what they focus on.