UNU GOES TO THE MOVIES — WEEKEND OF JANUARY 27th
The January 27th weekend looks like a fascinating one for movie box office watchers. There are three new movies opening nationally today, competing for the attention of moviegoers with a couple of surprisingly strong films from last weekend. As if that wasn’t enough to create a logjam in the box office charts, the Oscar nomination announcements on Tuesday typically create renewed interest in some of the nominated films still playing nationally.
Researchers at Unanimous formed a Swarm A.I. composed of 35 casual movie watchers (of mixed age and gender) to assess the interesting mix of films opening today. RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER is the latest film in that series, based on the popular videogame franchise. A DOG’S PURPOSE positions itself as a feel-good family film about man’s reliance on his best friend. The final film the Swarm considered, GOLD, has Matthew McConaughey headlining a movie based on the true story of an entrepreneur who accidentally discovered a fortune.
In the chart above you can the swarm’s immediate response to seeing trailers for each of the three movies, as well as how UNU predicted the movies would fare this upcoming weekend. The swarm was asked how accurate they perceived industry forecasts to be, and also to provide their own prediction for the box office numbers as well.
UNU thought RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER would hit somewhat close to what it is forecasted to do in revenues. What researchers found interesting is what we see with the movie A DOG’S PURPOSE. This is a film whose trailer clearly wowed UNU. When the swarm has been that happy with a preview in the past, they’ve typically predicted a film would over-perform estimates. With A DOG’S PURPOSE, that didn’t happen. They barely expected the movie to hit modest, downward-adjusted industry projections.
So what happened here? After rating the trailer, Unanimous AI researchers informed the swarm about the controversy involving A DOG’S PURPOSE regarding a TMZ video showing a fearful dog being forcefully coerced into a stunt in the movie. Although UNU was hesitant to overstate the effects that allegations of animal cruelty would have on the movie’s box office potential, it still made an impression on the weekend prediction of total revenues. If the movie falls short of expectations, this could well be the reason why.
The third movie UNU considered for the weekend may have given the swarm a sense of déjà vu. GOLD is based on the real life tale of an entrepreneur, giving it a lot in common with another Weinstein Company film from last week, THE FOUNDER. The swarm loved the trailer for THE FOUNDER so much, in fact, that UNU strongly overshot how that movie would do last weekend. Perhaps mindful of that, things were a little more restrained this week when rating GOLD’s prospects.
Will RESIDENT EVIL or A DOG’S PURPOSE hit the top spot win the weekend box office wars? Will GOLD be able to crack the top 10? We’ll be back on Monday to see how UNU did with these predictions and look at what factors drove revenues over the weekend. And if you’d like to get a regular dose of UNU predictions emailed to you weekly, just drop us a line below.
