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"Chaos in Hollywood: Can science explain why a movie is a hit or a flop?," by John Cassidy. The New Yorker, 31 March 1997, pages 36-44.
Making movies is a risky business. There are plenty of examples showing that the right star, a catchy concept, or a brilliant script provide little insurance against financial disaster. Is there any way to predict which movies will be profitable? In this article, the author describes the ideas of economists Art De Vany and David Walls, whose research into which films profit and which ones bust convinced them that chaos theory describes the industry pretty well. An unpredictable "information cascade"---in which potential viewers size up a movie based on information they get from friends, movie critics, and other sources---cause viewers to gravitate to a handful of movies out of the hundreds released each year. The conclusion is that, like long-term weather forecasting, predicting which movies will be successful has a built-in complexity that makes it impossible to do with any accuracy. In interviews with Hollywood film executives, the author of the article found that they didn't give much credence to the economists' views. While the executives agreed it is difficult to predict which movies would be hits, they believed that certain factors, such as a big star or making a movie into an "event," are the keys to success.
--- Allyn Jackson
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