Today’s post is a bit of a departure for Data on the Rocks. Instead of simply presenting some data with an accompanying analogy, this post is a statistical prediction. The Academy Awards are this Sunday, and the big question as always is which film is going to win Best Picture. The Oscars are notoriously hard to predict, with an eclectic voting body and an atypical voting process. Plus, who can forget the drama last year when La La Land was incorrectly announced as Best Picture instead of the true winner, Moonlight? This animated graphic shows the predicted winner of Best Picture from a statistical model. The model is based on many factors including: the Rotten Tomatoes “All Critics” and “Top Critics” scores, Oscar nominations for other categories, and other major awards nominations/wins. Each point represents the best guess for the probability of a win, and the grey bars represent the uncertainty. After the Golden Globes, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri appeared to be the heavy favorite; however, this came with a high degree of uncertainty. The Shape of Water then racked up some wins with the Critics Choice, Producers Guild, and Directors Guild Awards which are historically pretty good predictors of the Oscars top prize. After all the dust settled, The Shape of Water is the modest favorite with around a 50% chance of winning but followed closely by Three Billboards with around a 30% chance.
Category: Movies
3D Movies
Since the release of Avatar, it seems like there has been an explosion of movies being released in 3D. And with a hefty surcharge for 3D movie tickets, it is not hard to understand why. But is it true that more and more movies are being released in 3D? And are these movies really dominating the movie industry? On the left, you can see the proportion of movies that were released in 3D from 2006 to 2016, and the revenue generated from those movies. The number of movies being released in 3D has actually been fairly stable since 2011, about a year after Avatar’s release. The revenue from those 3D movies however has continued to skyrocket. In 2016, 3D movies accounted for only 20% of movie releases, but brought in just over 50% of the box office revenue. That means that the average 3D movie brings in 4x the revenue as an average 2D movie. In terms of a box office boxing match, this is equivalent to Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the highest earning actor in 2016, facing off against a 9-year old boy.
Data on the Rocks 