THRILLER MARKET ANALYSIS

ISOBEL BAYLISS

INTRO

• In this task I will be researching the success in the thriller genre in recent years as well as gaining an understanding of what makes a thriller film successful. In this research I will determine the usual groups of people who view thriller films as well as seeing the profits made etc..

THRILLER GENRE AUDIENCES

• These are the characteristics for a common thriller genre audience. I have found through this research that the audience characteristics consist of all ages and sociographic groups. However the most likely audience to watch thriller films are females over 35 closely followed by men over 35. The sociographic groups show that people from all lifestyles will watch thriller films and there is no specific sociographic group to relate to. These are the highest percentages that I found:

• 60% females over 35

• 56% of C2 sociographic group

THRILLER FILMS FROM 2013This list shows all of the thriller movies released in 2013. the highest ranked film ‘Gravity’ sold 31,441,779 tickets in total. Whereas the lowest ranked film ‘Knife Fight’ sold 248. The total amount of thriller films in this list is 62 and between all of these 140,640,782 tickets were sold. As well as an overall gross profit $1,143,409,824 for the thriller genre.

MOST SUCCESSFUL

• Some of the most successful films of 2013 were Gravity, White house down and Olympus has fallen. All of these films consist of important themes and narratives that create suspense and tension throughout the film for the audience. Another thing to recognise is that most of these films were produced by big conglomerate production companies and are labelled as Hollywood blockbusters. Some of the least successful thriller films were made by independent companies who struggled to sell tickets.

WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL THRILLER FILM?

• To make a successful thriller film there needs to be elements of suspense and tension throughout. The audience are looking for something that keeps them hooked and this is created through technical aspects of the production such as camerawork music etc… Another thing I have learnt through this research is that all of the successful films contain fighting, whether its against an enemy or fighting to save your life. So I think to make a successful thriller film there needs to be elements of this.

CONCLUSION

• From this research I have found some information that did not surprise me, for example the most successful films were all created by big Hollywood companies which gives them more viewings. I also saw that these films carried genetic conventions of tension building and suspense. However one thing that did surprise me were the characteristics of the audience. For example I would not expect women to be the main consumers of thriller films because they are more fastpaced.