Is someone at Marvel financing a secret smear campaign against Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice? It's hard to believe any of this negativity is going to have an impact on a movie which pits the Caped Crusader against the Man of Steel, but the latest baffling story to emerge is in regards to computer scientists who have come up with a way of figuring out how likely it is that a movie will reach profitability.
By using data they've compiled from 2506 movies released between 2000 - 2010, their program analyses everything from the budget to cast and release date to figure out just how likely it is that a movie will turn a profit of at least $7.3 million at the box office, a number they believe studios need in order to be happy with their investment. In the case of Batman v Superman, it stands only a 32% chance of becoming profitable next month.
Michael Lash, a PhD student who helped conduct the experiment attempted to justify that by stating that, "Movies that sell better at the box office may also need bigger investments. Thus they do not necessarily provide satisfactory returns for investors." That's all well and good, but there are a lot of problems here.
For starters, they're using data from BEFORE superhero movies took off in a big way (just look at how Ant-Man, Deadpool, and Guardians of the Galaxy have performed in recent years), and are failing to take into account things like word of mouth and marketing. As a result, of all the reasons you might have to worry about Batman v Superman not being a hit, the findings from this computer program probably shouldn't be one of them...
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