THE OSCAR ISSUE / HUFFINGTON / 02.10-17.13
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david rothschild
subjective ratings, Oscar nominations and a nominee, they are not predictive of
biographical data. The reason is simple:
the eventual winner. For example, movPrior to the other awards shows, there is
ies released late in year are more likely
a dearth of variables that properly idento get a nomination for an Oscar, relatify individual award categories, as most
tive to movies released in the spring; but
data is just movie specific.
conditional on getting nomination, they
But, there are two goals of fundamenare no more likely to win the Oscar.
tal models: forecasting and determining
which variables have predictive power.
BOX OFFICE SUCCESS: This category includes
While fundamental models do not make
variables like: gross revenue, screens, avgreat forecasts for the Oscars relative to
erage gross revenue per screen, these valother data including prediction markets,
ues on the first week of wide release and
they can still provide insight into which
the first four weeks of wide release, and
variables we should follow.
many other combinations. Between gross
All of the insights in this column are
revenue and number of screens there are
into the predictive power of variables,
some really interesting variables to conconditional on a movie getting a nominasider here. This is further complicated
tion for an Oscar, at the
by the staggered opening
time of the nomination.
of many Oscar nominated
How well a movie does in
movies. After much investiIT
IS
NO
the box office, especially
gation, the predictive power
SURPRISE
after a few weeks, the popuin this category is highly
THAT THE
lar ratings, and h ow many
correlated with the change
OSCAR
nominations the movie
that happens over the first
receives are all significant
few weeks. A key inflection
VOTERS
predictive variables.
point appears to be between
VALUE
weeks four and five. For
THEIR OWN
STUDIO INPUTS: This category
Best Picture I follow this
JUDGMENT
,
includes variables like
variable closely: 2*Gross
AND MOVIES
budget, release date, genre,
Week 5 - Gross Week 4.
WITH MORE
and when the movie goes
From week four to week
NOMINATIONS
to wide release. Some of
five, Argo went from $13.3
these variables correlated
million to $9.0 million,
TEND TO
strongly with whether a
while Lincoln went from
DO WELL IN
movie gets a nomination,
$18.0 million to $12.4 milWINNING
but conditional on being
lion. Thus, from this ru-
‘‘
OSCARS.
‘‘