Tom Laughlin wrote a few books claiming there is an exact formula for making a hit
I have not bought the books but he may know since he made three very popular Billy Jack films
No.
I don’t think it’s a yes or no answer. Maybe it’s a film that has to hit the jugular of the American people when they are faced with something like a crisis or coming off a bad time in history. Look at Star Wars. We had just lost the war in Vietnam, gasoline prices were going up and I believe there was a recession. I was a little kid when it came out and I think it blew people away because they had never seen anything like it before. Or, look at Casablanca, where America and the world faced a crossroads in history, humanity hanging in the balance, fighting a war against a very strong enemy and Casablanca, (I wasn’t there of course), might have filled people up with hope. Or take 2001. It sold well due, to among other things, being called by hippies, “the ultimate trip,” especially where we see the star gate at the end of the film. And, of course, maybe some films can be marketed well due to the, would the word be zeitgeist? of the times, such as James Bond or Star Wars toys. Some of these films that are mentioned were originally other things before they became movies such as books, comic books or sequels. So, I think that I would have to say that it partly rests on a random element where the time when the film comes out may decide how well it will do financially and also on things like market research such as a ride at Disneyworld like the Pirates of the Caribbean, a book like Gone With The Wind or maybe something like a genre that is doing well at a particular time, i.e. Star Wars leads to influencing films like Alien, Blade Runner and The Terminator.
These films all have one thing in common: The characters are easy to emotionally connect wtih.
That’s entertainment.
“…could we also identify common features of all of them? "
Yes, there is something in common between ALL those films. They are all major studio films. Not one single independent film among them. The reason those films made so much money is because they had a potential built in audience due to the advertising media, distribution channels and exhibition venues controlled by the majors. A film that does not have access to all those elements does not have much of a chance to make the kind of money those films made even if it was the best film ever made. “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it….” situation.
Good marketing /publicity seems to be a big factor, but then box office bombs are usually films that had large marketing campaigns. And love, politics and sec are such common themes /elements that it seems kind of easy to find just as many failures with these themes as there are successes. If I had to pick one element that helps, I’d go with timing.
Jazzaloha
NPR’s On Writing a Bestseller reviews a recent Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century’s Biggest Bestsellers by James W. Hall. Hall ostensibly identifies twelve features of best sellers. The article disucsses a few:
Almost every one of the best-sellers engaged with the hot-button social issue of its time — race (Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird), sex (Valley of the Dolls) or politics (The Hunt for Red October) — expressing, in Hall’s words, “some larger, deep-seated and unresolved conflict in the national consciousness.” Again and again, the books feature fractured families and protagonists who are outsiders. “What’s true for Scarlett [O’Hara] is also true for Allison MacKenzie and Jack Ryan and Mitch McDeere and Professor Robert Langdon,” he writes. And the American Dream (or Dream Deferred or Dream Perverted) looms large as a motif; it is variously exalted or depicted as corrupt (Peyton Place), even nightmarish (The Dead Zone, Jaws). Secret societies abound (The Godfather, The Firm and, of course, The Da Vinci Code), which Hall interprets as speaking to the American “suspicion of institutions, public and private, that might in some way undermine our personal liberties.”
If we were to take a look at the top grossing films of all time, could we also identify common features of all of them? (I would think Hollywood executives have already done something like this, if it were possible.)
Here’s the top 50 (adjusted for inflation)
Gone With the Wind (1939) Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)The Sound of Music (1965)
E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Titanic (1997)
Jaws (1975)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Exorcist (1973)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
101 Dalmatians (1961)
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Avatar (2009)
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)
The Sting (1973)
The Lion King (1994)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Graduate (1967)
Fantasia (1940)
The Godfather (1972)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Mary Poppins (1964)
Grease (1978)
Thunderball (1965)
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Jungle Book (1967)
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Shrek 2 (2004)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Love Story (1970)
Spider-Man (2002)
Independence Day (1996)
Home Alone (1990)
Pinocchio (1940)
Cleopatra (1963)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Goldfinger (1964)
Airport (1970)
American Graffiti (1973)
The Robe (1953)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
Bambi (1942)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Batman (1989)
The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)