Stats at the Movies

Based on article :http://collider.com/box-office-reviews-statistics

     This article basically talks about how much a movie makes, what factors go into the success of a movie, and if there is a way to predict box office success based on an equation that focuses on 5 main categories. The article concludes by explaining that the equation  (Gross = –80 + 0.6×RT + 0.5×Budget + 0.025×Theaters + 50×Sequel + 20×PG13) is good at projecting gross income for average movies but not for "megahits [like] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Transformers 3, Twilight: Breaking Dawn, and The Hangover 2", which it extremely underestimates. The equation basically explains how much a variable (PG-13 and sequels) influences an AVERAGE movie such as, "PG-13 movie is predicted to earn about $25 million more" and "Sequels are predicted to earn about $50 million more at the box office."


     I actually really enjoyed this article. I figured that the "megahits" would go beyond the predicted values but I thought it was very interesting how he used EXACTLY what we are doing in class to do his experiment. * It was also very well written and he did a wonderful job of explaining to his audience (who may not be "stats geeks") how he got the equation, what it meant, how it appeared in context, how it can predict other values, the outliers, etc.

     This matches up exactly with what we're doing in AP Stats like I said before. It's way more complex because of all the variables he tied in but altogether through his graph, equation, explanation  etc, are directly associated with what we're doing in class...seriously...is there a better article that matches? Besides the fact that it was more complex and that he showed me how to incorporate different variables into the equation, which we haven't done in class, I didn't really see any brand new information.

     Using his equation, I tried to predict the gross value of Breaking Dawn: Part 2. So....Gross = –80 + 0.6×(not given yet*) + 0.5×(131.5) + 0.025×(2810) + 50×5 + 20×1
From this equation, I got that it would gross about $406 million. This is an okay value considering that Breaking Dawn Part 1 grossed $300 million. This is such a popular series it will probably gross well over the part 1 gross. *RT hasn't given its grade yet. 

* Nothing like Pre-calc where we had to find the velocity of a ferris wheel. I mean, who really cares...


Picture: http://www.andpop.com/2012/06/20/breaking-dawn-part-2-trailer-finally/
Infographic: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/twilight-saga-and-breaking-dawn-stats-infographic/36576/