This document analyzes box office data and critical reception for horror films from 1998-2014. It finds that comedy is the most popular genre overall but horror performs best in October and winter months. Most successful horror films are R-rated and from the late 1990s/early 2000s. The Conjuring was the highest grossing horror film of 2013 and its success led to the spin-off Annabelle. While Annabelle was financially successful, it received poor critical reviews unlike The Conjuring which won several awards. The document concludes that choosing Warner Bros. as the distributor, aiming for a 15 rating, and releasing in summer could help a new horror film achieve financial success.

1. Institutional Research
My chosen
film genre is
Horror; this
was the fifth
most top
grossing
genres since
1998.
(http://www.the-numbers. com)
These figures show the differences between movie genres success in the market. From this table we are
aware that comedy is the most top grossing genre. But from the movie statistics, which have been made,
it is very obvious that the Horror genre is one the smallest genres considering 423 Horror movies have
been made since 1998; whereas the Comedy genre has seen more than 2000 movies. This could be of
course down to the fact that the Comedy genre is larger appeal to a wider audience as well as the fact
that Comedy movies can be released at any schedule. Most Horror movies are at their most successful
when they are released in the winter. Most notably, October is the month of Halloween which could
make people wish to see a Horror movie to fit with the theme of that month. There are some exceptions
to this of course with the likes of The Conjuring which was released in July which we will look at later
on.
From this we are able to get a general overview of the most popular Horror movies released in box office
during the period of 1995-2014, we can see clearly that the majority of successful movies were rated R which
is the equivalent of the censorship of 15 or 18 in the UK. This age will restrict who can see the film and
whether children can view this with adult consent. I am Legend was distributed by Warner Bros. What is
interesting is that the majority of the films in this list are from the late 90s and early 2000s. This could
correlate with the growing unpopularity of the Horror genre after the 2000s which is noted for having
critically sub-standard films in comparison to the other decades.

2. 2013
In 2013, The Conjuring was the highest rank of Horror; Lionsgate distributed it
with the rating R/15. Therefore this limits the audience, as children will not be
able to attend the film unless under the adult’s consent as they may find it too
disturbing for them. The Conjuring is the highest grossing Horror film of this
decade so far. The sales of this film may be all down to the fact that The
Conjuring was based on true events that occurred in the 1970s which garnered a
lot of attention from the public. This was even further increased when those who
were involved within the events in real life helped market the film. Their success
could also be down to Warner Bros. decision to release during the summer due
to positive reception from test audiences which could have made the film have a
larger market during the summer season.
The
Theatrical
Performance
for The
Conjuring.
Insidious Chapter 2 was the second most popular film of 2013 within this genre
and this may be down the fact that it is highly ranked and has a large revenue
stream. The advertising of these companies may also differ on how the films sell.
As this was a sequel, people who watched and enjoyed taken would expect
Insidious Chapter 2 to be just as good so this would increase the sales for this
film. From this table you are aware that there is no major company which
distribute Horror films, they all differ and oppose in popularity but looking at
statistics you can the most popular studio overall is Warner Bros. due to its
grossing figure of $1317,400,141. The studios Sony Pictures and Lionsgate are
the only studios to have more than one film in the list. What I find to be
interesting about this list is that outside of the Conjuring (which is an adaptation

3. of a published journal on the events), only 3 films on this list are entirely original
IPs and are not sequels or remakes. This is probably an indication that most
Horror films are turned into franchises when they are successful and this will
result in more films based on the original idea. This takes me onto my next point:
2014
In 2014, Horror films were not as successful financially in comparison to the
previous year; although it can be said that there are a lot more original IPs than
2013 (7 out of the 10). There is a similar ratio of Pg-13 films to R rated films
which gives a clear indication for what age rating I should be aiming for in my
production. What I find to be the most significant part of this list is that the top
grossing Horror film for this year, Annabelle; is a spinoff of The Conjuring. This
backs up my idea that successful Horror films are turned into franchises and end
being given sequels of varying quality.
Critical success
While it is important to see which films perform well financially; it is also
important to see which films are the most critically successful because there
could be a chance that films end creating more revenue and success in the long
term if they are critical successful (e.g. merchandise, Blu-ray/DVD sales, awards).
To present my point I have decided to use Rotten Tomatoes which is a website
that accumulates the majority of the reviews for films. Below are the ratings of
The Conjuring and Annabelle.

4. It is clear that from both audiences and critics agreed that The Conjuring’s
success was responsible for Annabelle. However Annabelle was disappointing
critically for audiences. Despite this both were financially successful. However,
only the Conjuring won 4 awards including best Horror film at The Saturn and
Empire Awards. I feel that studios are not going achieve a franchise that they
want if their films decrease in quality every time a new film within this
‘cinematic universe’ is released. It is for reasons like this as to why Horror films
are nowhere as successful today as they were in the late 90s.
Summary
For the release of my film, I’d choose Warner Bros. to distribute my film, this is
because from looking at their data, they released some of the most successful
Horror films compared to others even though Lionsgate and Miramax had major
releases, and their genre of films released varied into many different genres. I’m
hoping to make the film quite surreal and unique from other Horror films so it’d
be released in a limited range of cinemas because of the target audience towards
this sort of film and I wouldn’t want to lose out on profit from having minor
ticket sales, I wouldn’t go straight to DVD either because if it has been released at
the cinema it is more likely to get feedback and more advertisement as cinemas
would want the income of people buying food and drinks when watching this
film at the cinema. I’m going to put the film at a 15 rating as this is the standard
for most Horror films in the UK if you want to show the level of violence I have
planned within cinemas. Ideally I would like it to get released in the summer as
people are more likely to have disposable income around that time and I think I
could make the film the most financially profitable within this timeframe.