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Commercial success and artistic recognition of motion picture projects

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Abstract

This article introduces a model derived from the relational view of strategy to investigate (1) the impact of track record and financial resources on the commercial success and artistic recognition of cinema projects, and (2) the relationship between the commercial and artistic dimensions of film performance. Structural equation modeling carried out on 2,080 feature films released in the North-American theatrical market from 1988 to 1997 illustrates the mediating role of financial resources as catalysts of commercial and artistic track record resources, and unearths important conclusions relative to the specific dynamics of resource combinations in cinema projects. Results also reveal a novel hierarchy of lead actors, directors, and producers in the explanation of film performance. Last, they confirm the precedence of commercial success in the USA, and the symbolic and institutional status of US cinema as being primarily an industry.

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Notes

  1. “Above the line” talent (the producer, writers, director, and lead actors) typically accounts for over 50% of a film’s production cost (Daniels et al. 1998).

  2. By claiming higher fees, star directors and actors manage to appropriate straight off a fixed amount of the higher rent expected of the movie, which they partly use to cover the personnel expenses that they incur by bringing in their own staff with them on movie sets.

  3. Source: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978576.html?categoryid=20&cs=1&nid=2562. Accessed June 17, 2009.

  4. Details of these procedures are available from the author upon request.

  5. All parameters mentioned here and in the rest of the article are standardized.

  6. Source: http://www.mpaa.org/researchStatistics.asp. Accessed June 18, 2009.

  7. Note, however, that these movies only grossed an average of 1.8% of total theatrical revenue over these 10 years, with a low of 1.1% in 1995 and a peak of 3% in 1997 (Tessier et al. 1999 ).

  8. Source: http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/festival/regulations/. Accessed July 2, 2009.

  9. These last two studies use the highly detailed American Film Institute genre classification, and consider emerging as well as disappearing genres in their longitudinal analyses of genre innovations.

  10. Source: http://www.mpaa.org/researchStatistics.asp. Accessed June 29, 2009.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Giuseppe Delmestri for encouraging me to publish this article, and Laurence Capron, Steven Casper, Rodolphe Durand, Yves Evrard, Michel Ghertman, Jan Heide, Philippe Monin, Miguel Rivera, John Sedgwick, George Yip, the Editors, and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments on earlier versions. All errors and omissions remain mine.

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    Allègre L. Hadida

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Hadida, A.L. Commercial success and artistic recognition of motion picture projects. J Cult Econ 34, 45–80 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-009-9109-z

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