"Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" is one of the biggest and highly-anticipated superhero movies releasing in 2016. While fans and industry gurus wait to watch what results brew out of DC Comics-Warner Bros. partnership, some algorithms now suggest that this film may not meet the success that the studios have been hoping for.
The "Batman V Superman" fervour is building up, especially after the final trailer was released recently. And now, just about a month ahead of its release, a new algorithm has revealed that one of the most expensive movies of the year could be a flop at the box office. With a budget of more than $200 million (£140 million), "Dawn of Justice" just has 32 percent chances of making profit, reported Daily Mail.
According to the report, a new algorithm used a machine with software, trained by scientists, and it analysed more than 2,500 movies released in the US between 2000 and 2010. The researchers, whose work is published in the journal of Social Computing, Behavioural-Cultural Modelling and Prediction, also analysed the films due to be released over the next year to assess their chances of making profit from box office sales. And disappointingly, "Batman V Superman" came out with poor results.
The software considered five major factors including the director-cast partnership, genre, plot and the time of year when the film was released to predict how a movie will do at the box office. It identified factors that correlate most to the profit a film will make, and revealed that cast-director partnership and winter release dates are the biggest keys for success.
In case of "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" the researchers found out that its expensive cast and high budget will make it difficult for it to break even and make profits when it hits theatres.
Interestingly, "Zootopia," an animated movie from the same producers as "Frozen," has been predicted to have 55 percent chances of making profit.
"It's easier to predict the box office receipts if you have star power, but that doesn't help in predicting profitability because the actors charge such a hefty fee upfront that it reduces the profit," Dr Kang Zhao, a business analytics expert at the University of Iowa explained.
We will know if this study proves to be true and how the movie fares at the box office only when "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" hits theatres on March 25, 2016.
