Blog post 12: Genre and Audience Research

Genre 

The three genres that were most successful at the box office were:

• Animation (21.4% of the total box office)
• Action (18.7%)
• Comedy (13.7%)

The three genres that were least successful at the box office were:

• Romance (1.2% of the total box office)
• Documentary (0.9%) 
• War (<0.1%)

The film genre that had the highest number of releases was comedy at 153 releases. Although animation was the most successful genre at the box office, it was the lowest out of the three most successful genres in terms of numbers of releases at 33. 47 actions films were released.

From this information about genre I can tell that the higher the film production, the higher chance there is of a film being successful. Animation films tend to have a very high budget because of the high tech equipment they have to use and so they are more likely to be successful.
I can also tell from this information that the film audiences in that particular year really enjoyed watching animated films as well as action and comedy. This information also tells me that film audiences might not necessarily go see a specific genre because of the amount of films that have been released, but there may be other factors that go into it such as marketing and advertisement.

Audiences 

• The age group that made up the largest proportion of cinema admissions in the UK was 15-24 
• The comedy film which was most successful with this age group was The Hangover Part 2 at and made up 60% of the film's total audience 

The film that was most popular with the over 50s was Sunshine on Leith and it is a drama/comedy musical. The genre that was most popular with men was thriller, action and comedy whereas with women it was romantic comedies, animated films or documentaries. UK films appealed most to female audiences.
The three films that were most popular with the 7-14 age group were One Direction: This is UK, Wreck-It Ralph and Despicable Me 2. This tells us that their preferred genre is usually animated films or lighthearted, celebrity documentaries that are targeted at younger audiences.

The three most popular films with the 35-44 age group were Frozen, The Croods and Jack and the Giant Slayer. From this information, I can understand more clearly why animation might be the most successful genre at the box office, since both younger and older audiences make up a high percentage of the audiences for that genre. This could be because animated films are targeted at families with young kids as well as the parents who are taking their children to see certain films.

• The 3 films that were most popular with the 25-34 age group were Django Unchained, Fast & Furious 6 and Rush
• The films that were most popular with middle class audiences were Rush and Oz the Great and Powerful 

The film that was most popular amongst people living in London and the home counties was Django Unchained, however in Scotland it was Sunshine on Leith. This tells me that the audiences in Scotland could have more of a certain age group such as over 50+ and so the most popular film there was one that was aimed at an older audience. In London there are most likely more younger adults and so the most popular film was an action film.

The two other things I found interesting:

• Older audiences still preferred animated films, even though they are seen to be targeted at very young audiences 
• Animation was the most successful genre amongst people in 2013-14