Barbie will own the conversation. No, Oppenheimer will be the summer’s “must see” movie. The July 21 face-off between those unlikely rivals hints at the imminent surprises of Summer ’23.
Everyone I meet claims to have the “inside” on coming hits or misses. Since big chips are on the table, I decided to hunt down the expert whose job it is to know.
Kevin Goetz, as CEO of Screen Engine, is the feared and revered guru of advanced analytics who is hired to test most of the movies hitting the theaters. Or TV screens.
As such he has dutifully dispensed his data, insights and, often, some proposed solutions to filmmakers and studio chiefs. Most are eager to hear them. Even if some resist taking action on them.
Yes, he buzzes data with Tom Cruise and shares intel with Ron Howard and Michael Bay. He may not with Chris Nolan, because the director of Oppenheimer, like the protagonist of his movie, keeps his cards close to the vest.
Goetz has been “dispensing candor with kindness” for three decades, which itself reflects his proficiency. Accordingly, the American Cinematheque presented him last week with a special “Power of Cinema” award.
Spend time with him and you realize that he loves films as ardently as he measures them. He has himself produced 12 movies for television.
Nothing energizes him more than those moments at test screenings when the audience applauds the title of the movie (“you will be the first to see a movie titled Top Gun: Maverick“). Or at the finish when viewers are excited by the ending (Fatal Attraction, when data prompted a sharp new third act).
Screen Engine rates scripts for film or TV as well as films awaiting distribution deals or facing imminent release. Sometimes its data suggests increased outlay on promotion; sometimes the films are “dead on arrival.”
Delivering pain is itself painful to Goetz, who admits that “watching people watching movies in theaters is still an extraordinary experience for me.”
But he acknowledges that it’s been a fading one – a trend that represents a challenge to his business. Box office likely will be up 10%-15% this summer, but still down 10%-12% from summer 2019. “Many of the people in my screenings and focus groups are accustomed to watching films on their laps, not in theaters,” he points out.
Finding reliable audiences for testing has become tougher (he pays as much as $20 for customers in difficult-to-reach segments). Viewers are warned not to discuss the screenings on social media. Their cards and in-person interviews are analyzed by demos (octants as well as quadrants) and even broken down in terms of “psychographics” (behavioral patterns).
Lurking in the background of every test is that ultimate prognosis: Is this really a movie or is it a streamer? And what is the difference? The script of Chinatown today may have been deemed grist for a multi-part streamer, Goetz notes. CODA was a streamer that swept the Oscars.
‘CODA’
Apple Original Films
Then comes an even dicier question: Picasso’s work was never tested and likely might have failed. “I was never asked to test a Picasso, but I still believe it’s wrong to pass judgment on a movie until you see it with an audience,” Goetz says.
Goetz, who started out as an actor, understands the intimate link between young audiences and their phones, but he wishes they could have been present when theatergoers convulsed with laughter when they first saw Borat or There’s Something About Mary. Or when they were jolted by Paranormal Activity.
Which takes us back to Barbie going up against nuclear secrets. That face-off pits Nolan against Greta Gerwig with her cast of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
“The world was never the same after Oppenheimer,” Nolan reminds us. Ken and Barbie likely didn’t notice, but insiders this week may be astonished by their strong tracking. Yes, Barbie, you, too, may go nuclear.
