CiteULike is a free online bibliography manager. Register and you can start organising your references online.

How Critical Are Critical Reviews? The Box Office Effects of Film Critics, Star Power, and Budgets Export

Journal of Marketing, Vol. 67, No. 4. (October 2003), pp. 103-117.

Citation Format

[Posts]

View FullText article


X Reviews [Write a review of this article]

X Find related articles from these CiteULike users

X Find related articles with these CiteULike tags

X Posting History

X Abstract

The authors investigate how critics affect the box office performance of films and how the effects may be moderated by stars and budgets. The authors examine the process through which critics affect box office revenue, that is, whether they influence the decision of the film going public (their role as influencers), merely predict the decision (their role as predictors), or do both. They find that both positive and negative reviews are correlated with weekly box office revenue over an eight-week period, suggesting that critics play a dual role: They can influence and predict box office revenue. However, the authors find the impact of negative reviews (but not positive reviews) to diminish over time, a pattern that is more consistent with critics’ role as influencers. The authors then compare the positive impact of good reviews with the negative impact of bad reviews to find that film reviews evidence a negativity bias; that is, negative reviews hurt performance more than positive reviews help performance, but only during the first week of a film’s run. Finally, the authors examine two key moderators of critical reviews, stars and budgets, and find that popular stars and big budgets enhance box office revenue for films that receive more negative critical reviews than positive critical reviews but do little for films that receive more positive reviews than negative reviews. Taken together, the findings not only replicate and extend prior research on critical reviews and box office performance but also offer insight into how film studios can strategically manage the review process to enhance box office revenue.


X BibTeX record

X RIS record


Privacy Statement | Terms & Conditions
CiteULike organises scholarly (or academic) papers or literature and provides bibliographic (which means it makes bibliographies) for universities and higher education establishments. It helps undergraduates and postgraduates. People studying for PhDs or in postdoctoral (postdoc) positions. The service is similar in scope to EndNote or RefWorks or any other reference manager like BibTeX, but it is a social bookmarking service for scientists and humanities researchers.