Have you ever thought what makes a movie popular? I mean, in which component should we start with? Is it the environment, the character, the story? We can say a lot about everything, most probably lots of people said already about it. And I, too, have something to say.
I am not talking about the quality of the movies. In the past, we all witnessed some great movies fail at the box office. And some lame movies became very popular.
I am talking about the success ratio in their target market.
If you are making a movie based on a target market. You have to attract the people in the cluster.
Psychology uses interpersonal attraction theory to explain one's attraction to another. We’ll use it for the movies.
The theory consists of:
Appearance
Proximity
Similarity
Responsiveness
Reciprocal Liking (Rewards)
1. Appearance
Yeah, we tend to like people with good appearance. This is an evolutionary thing. But, what is the appearance in a movie? The movie itself first describes itself with appearance. Nearly everything in it is related to it. Special effects, art direction, editing, actors, and actresses. In this step, the director should calculate the market. If you are making a movie for a man in their early 20s, you should put more money for special effects. And muscle well-built and vulgar cast maybe?
But, If you are making it for women the guys can be more gentle. You can forget the special effects budget and sort that for some lovely scene-making.
2. Proximity
We tend to like people who are all around us. The people we see every day or have a chance to see generally around. For movies; It is advertising. Most of this advertising is brand recognition, of the director, the cast, the story. It’s familiarness with the audience. This is why popular movies are mostly cliches. It should be easy to transmit the message to an audience.
3. Similarity
We like mirror images. Reminds us that we matter, we are really like others. And we are not alone. Seeing a character, even if it is a computer-generated monster which thinks like we do, will grab our attention. People doing similar things like us will unpreventably cause friendliness.
If you are making a movie for white-collars, it will probably be good to put a Starbucks in it. A unicorn for little girls, a role model for boys.
4. Responsiveness, Reciprocal Liking
Yeah, you can wait for responses from a person. But you can not interact with a movie. Its flow is one-sided. Roots of responsiveness of a movie lie in its preparations.
What does a man or woman want? What is the meaning of life? What kind of clothes are in fashion?
If you have questions, and the producers know that, they response you with the movie. And you’ll get rewarded.
This shows us the difference between an independent movie and a box office movie. The advantage of box office lies in its responsiveness. While independent makes suits and puts it in a shop window, box office movies are like tailors. They take measurements and try to sew the best dress for the audience, with the most suitable fabric.
This is why they make more money. Not because they are making so-called lame movies that everybody can understand. This is the reward for taking the job seriously.
The pattern in psychology, explaining people’s likeness can be used in other disciplines. Like that. That can be a new departure point for us. Let’s note that.
And while writing this essay I’ve discovered things. The interdisciplinary use of these patterns can lead to discoveries. Let’s note that, too.