By Matthew Helderman, & Luke Taylor
Determining specifics on the success of a product’s launch is always speculative. We’ve seen the same story countless times — a studio primes their latest release to be a massive box office success, only to watch the film crash and burn into box office bomb oblivion. Cloud Atlas, Mars Needs Moms, John Carter, Battleship, The Lone Ranger— we’re all familiar with these recent examples of big-budget bombs that were projected for success and proved to be poor investments.
The reasoning and research behind the cause of these failures and successes is endless — timing, marketing, money, foreign sales, lead actor status, direction, writing, length, acting — any of the above can be blamed for poor results. The reality is, it is simply impossible to determine the exact needs of an audience or consumer before any product is launched. Market research, development, and beta testing can certainly provide some statistics to lean on — but there is unfortunately no exact science until you are out there in the marketplace.
