Computer system created to stop movie flops

A computer that spots movie flops has been created in Hollywood to ensure that film companies have run away successes every time

15 December 2005 12:01 GMT / By Stuart Miles

A computer that spots movie flops has been created in Hollywood to ensure that film companies never have a turkey on their hands again.

To stop mistakes like Gigli staring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez the computer, rather than focusing on plot and characters, the computer system focuses on how many household stars are in the cast, the film's age rating, its genre and how many special effects are used in the film.

Once the information has been added the program places the film into one of nine categories ranging from flop to blockbuster.

According to the computer a flop is a film that is predicted to make less than £560,000 while a blockbuster is more than £110 million at the box office.

According to Prof Ramesh Sharda, of Oklahoma State University who invented the system the computer is spot on 37% of the time in putting films into the right box office receipts category and 75% of the time is right to within one category.

Prof Sharda suggests Titanic is one of the better examples; critics slammed the movie on its release for its lacklustre plot and poor dialogue, however the computer didn't see this. It saw a family film with likeable star Kate Winslet and plenty of special effects. The film is one of the biggest earners of all time.

The professor plans to take his computer system to Hollywood as well as developing it putting the technology on to a website where users can fill in the categories themselves.

So far the unit has been tested with 834 films released between 1998 and 2002.