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IMDb & Thriller Movies James Presland

IMDb & Thriller Movies

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Page 1: IMDb & Thriller Movies

IMDb & Thriller Movies

James Presland

Page 2: IMDb & Thriller Movies

What is IMDb?

The Internet Movie Database is a user compiled database filled with information pertaining to the film, television and videogame industries.

It covers casting details, the production crew, plot summaries, and biographies, as well as general trivia and minutiae.

As of the start of 2016, it has 3.6 million titles (films, television programmes, and individual episodes) and 7 million individuals logged in its database, curated by 65 million regular users.

Actors and production crew can upload their own résumés and pictures for a yearly fee.

Page 3: IMDb & Thriller Movies

What can it tell us about thriller movies? Given that IMDb collates the box office revenue of each film in

its database, various conclusions can be drawn about different movie genres using the information on the website.

The three thriller movies we will be analysing in this powerpoint are Bridge of Spies (Spielberg, 2015), Mission: Impossible 3 (Abrams, 2006) and Lucy (Besson, 2014).

Page 4: IMDb & Thriller Movies

Bridge of Spies

Budget: $40,000,000 Box Office Gross: $165 500 000

This movie had a very large return on its initial budget. From this, it can be inferred that the general public has an interest in spies, and cold war plots; potentially, events linked to the NSA and spying have revived interest in these topics.

Alternatively, it is possible that the collaboration between Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg (their fourth, according to IMDb) attracted people to this movie, given the reputation of the pair.

It also indicates that low budget thrillers can still be popular amongst mass audiences.

Page 5: IMDb & Thriller Movies

Mission Impossible 3

Budget: $150 000 000 Box Office Revenue: $397 900 000

The third instalment in one of the world’s most popular and renowned thriller franchise, Mission: Impossible 3 provides an interesting counterpoint to Bridge of Spies; not only was it a known quantity as a franchise movie, it also had a large budget.

It is also headlined by Tom Cruise, who is a famous action star; for a long time, his involvement in movies was part of their box office draw.

However, using data from IMDb it can be suggested that his star power has now waned, and people are more attracted to the franchise than him; Cruise’s most recent Mission Impossible movie made $600m at the Box Office, whereas his 2012 sci-fi thriller Oblivion made only $286 million on a similar sized budget.

Page 6: IMDb & Thriller Movies

Lucy

Budget: $40 000 000 Box Office Revenue: $463 400 000

Lucy is notable as one of the few thriller movies of recent years to star a female lead; Scarlett Johansson is rapidly becoming an action star in her own right, alongside her dramatic roles.

Despite being a controversial movie (receiving polarizing reviews and accusations of a nonsensical plot) it had notable box office success – it had a larger revenue than both Bridge of Spies and Mission Impossible 3.

This demonstrates, very clearly, that there is a market for female lead movies; hopefully, the movie industry will begin to reflect this and become more diverse.

Page 7: IMDb & Thriller Movies

In Conclusion

The information provided by IMDb is particularly useful as it allows us to make inferences about the viewing trends of worldwide audiences.

For example, through the basic analysis of three movies, we have seen that low budget thrillers can be successful (both Bridge of Spies and Lucy had a budget of $40m, but had a box office revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars) as well as that movies featuring female leads do, in fact, have the potential to be very profitable indeed.

Of course, this analysis was a limited one; only three films were considered, meaning that the sample size was limited, and other factors were not considered. (For example, release dates could have been considered, to examine which time of year is best to release a thriller movie.)

However, it is a clear demonstration of the use of IMDb; the information included on the database provides a springboard from which to draw conclusions about the movie industry as a whole.