Tracking Problems

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Variety's Gabriel Snyder has written a savvy story about how tracking from the three big companies (NRG, Marketcast, OTX) sometimes varies wildly, and how "midway through the summer, the studios have become keenly aware of cracks in their crystal ball."

Tracking, or the survey data that's supposed to give a strong clue what films people are interested in seeing, "has become the key source of studio expectations over B.O. prospects," Snyder writes. "But the information, once closely guarded, has gone public at the exact moment that serious questions are being raised over its reliability."

The biggest complainer in the piece, understandably, is Universal's co-chairman Marc Schmuger, who was irate over an item I wrote from Cannes about The Break-Up that noted that 30% of people polled had a "definite interest" in seeing the film, and only 5% said it was their "first choice" to see that weekend, which seemed to mean that "the game is pretty much over," I wrote. (Snyder says the author was "a blogger from Hollywood-Elsewhere.com." I guess there's no way to stop people from calling HE a blog, but I prefer the handle of "columnist.")

I was just repeating what I'd been told and the figures weren't inaccurate, but the verdict wasn't a fully considered call on my source's part or my own, and I've openly admitted this and tried to learn from this episode. (Schmuger says that NRG, MarketCast and OTX "were in complete disagreement on how The Break-Up was going to perform along every step of the way...when your information is in such disagreement, you're in complete confusion...it was a classic case where tracking was significantly off from where the performance was...it was the most frustrated I've ever been in my many, many years at a studio.")

I consider myself a bit wiser about tracking as a result. I learn something new every time I sift through it. Snyder's article points out four flaws in the surveying techniques of the three companies, and these same flaws have been pointed out to me by a Universal publicist pal, and I wrote about them myself. So let's hope that tracking improves down the road.

Box-office falloffs<< previous | next >>Split "Vice" Calls

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 23, 2006 at 1:37 PM

comment #1

Anonymous says ...

jeff---how is Miami Vice tracking?

Posted by Anonymous at July 23, 2006 2:03 PM

comment #2

Jeffrey Wells says ...

I'm not going to talk about the Vice tracking without knowing more, but I think you can probably sense how it's doing out there. I can feel it through my insect antennae and the hairs on the back of my neck, and the answer is blowin' in the wind.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at July 23, 2006 2:28 PM

comment #3

Anonymous says ...

fuck

Posted by Anonymous at July 23, 2006 5:52 PM

comment #4

Bill says ...

That must mean the tracking is going badly. I guess I'll skip this one too. Next.

Posted by Bill at July 23, 2006 7:01 PM

comment #5

Chad says ...

Well, if tracking meant a movie was actually GOOD, then The Da Vinci Code would be the modern day Citizen Kane.

DVD sales make up the largest percentage of revenue anyway these days, who cares about box office anymore?

Posted by Chad at July 24, 2006 12:06 AM

comment #6

Linden says ...

"DVD sales make up the largest percentage of revenue anyway these days, who cares about box office anymore?"
I think your missing how it works. Most films don't achieve profit until DVDs but that doesn't make the box office useless, far from it. Without a theatrical release, films wouldn't be making a profit on DVD.

How well a film does in the theatres is usually an indication of how well it will do on DVD. If a film costs 100 million to make and manages to make 150 million at the box office it won't have made a profit YET, but the studio knows that due to the good performance at the box office, DVD sales will be big. Without that good box office performance, DVDs most likely wouldn't make much money and the film would remain in the red. Theatrical release is still very important, especially for big budget movies like Miami Vice.

Posted by Linden at July 24, 2006 5:23 AM

comment #7