The document discusses research conducted on the target audiences of two films - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Gone Girl (2014). Both films have a female lead character and focus on the mystery/crime genre. Statistics show The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo attracted more males than females, while Gone Girl attracted a wider age range and more even gender split. A survey was also conducted that found most 15-24 year olds would be interested in a crime/thriller film, supporting that demographic as the target audience.

1. Target audience
research
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Gone Girl (2014)

2. Why these films?
• The films I have chosen to focus on are focused around the
genre of a mystery/crime. The fact that the main character is
female is what made me think that this may be a good example
to use in order to find some new ideas and inspiration for our
own teaser trailer and marketing campaign. It will also suggest
that the target audience for these films will be similar in
comparison to our potential target audience for our work. Gone
Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are also both fairly
recent films which will give us an idea of the updated
attraction for an audience of around a 15-24year old range.
Both films have a female main character which is what we
have in ours, and I believe that this will have an impact on the
target audience.

3. Secondary research
I found these statistics on Pearl and Dean for The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo. Looking at the age attraction, I can clearly see
that the majority of the audience that were attracted to the film
was 15-24 year olds which is what our target age group for our
film was. However, I was surprised to see that the film attracted
more of a male audience than female. It may be because the
genre in general appeals to a more male audience, or the action in
it is something that scares a more female crowd away. We plan
not to use very much action in ours, and so our film may attract
more of an even amount of females and males.
This table of statistics is for Gone Girl and again I was
surprised by the wide age group that the film attracted. I
understand that it may be because the characters are
middle aged, and the storyline includes many features of
crime, drama and a very messed up relationship that it
may attract many different people that may have
experienced a bad relationship or simply enjoy a crime
based film. I feel like it attracts more of a female group
seeing as the film is from the woman’s point of view and
therefore could be relatable in some ways for some
females. This is something we may demonstrate in some
ways by filming from the female character’s point of
view.

4. Secondary research
Looking on Box Office Mojo, I can see that The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo was very successful making a total profit of
$102,515,793. However, I was surprised seeing as I thought it
may have got more profit through starring Daniel Craig and
attracted a wider range of people than it did.
However, looking at the total gross for the film Gone Girl, it
seems to have come out s more successful. I feel like this is
probably because of the fact that it attracted a wider range of
age groups than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I have learnt
that maybe if we base our film and aim to attract a wider
audience and use a USP to create a greater amount of people,
our film would be more successful. The statistics on the
previous slide for gender is also slightly more even for Gone
Girl in comparison to the other film. There Is also a strong
male character role in this film and I feel like the storyline is
more neutral in Gone Girl than The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo seeing as that is more based around an action sort of
film.

5. Secondary research
• Both Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were novels before they
became films. Gone Girl has sold over 9.6 million copies across the world in
comparison to the 20 million copies for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I
question why Gone Girl was so much more successful when the film was released
in comparison to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After comparing money made
on the first weekend of the film’s releases, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made
$12.8 million in comparison to the $37,513,109 for Gone Girl on the opening
weekend. I question whether the readers of the novel Gone Girl preferred the
storyline and it was more attractive than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which
made people stay clear of that film. I also question whether the stars of the film
also had some input in the popularity. With them both being American films, Ben
Affleck in Gone Girl is likely to be more popular than Daniel Craig because he’s
an American actor. He may also have a wider and bigger fan base. Ben Affleck
has won more Oscars than Daniel Craig and was also more successful in his
famous Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in comparison to Daniel Craig’s
Skyfall as seen in statistics on http://www.the-movie-
times.com/thrsdir/ActorVS.cgi?baffleck+dcraig

6. Primary research
• I used Survey Monkey in order to create a survey to try and
find out what genre’s people like in order to help us determine
a good target audience for our film. I asked them 7 questions to
question their gender, age range, their relationship status,
genres they like, find out whether a crime thriller attracts to
them, and what their favourite genre is.
• I decided to use my social media to post the survey on because
I thought this would be a quick and easy way of contacting a
wide range of people of different ages and genders. I received
a variety of results from different age ranges and this helped
me to think about what our target audience should be and
whether we should consider changing it slightly.

7. What I learnt from my
survey
From my survey I learnt that in our 15-24 age range, 10/12
people said that they would find a crime/thriller film
appealing. However, when they chose their preferred
genre’s, only 3 people chose crime and only 3 people
chose thriller. I had noticed that others had looked at a
drama which may have a link with our genre. I feel like it
is a good sign that the majority of teens said that a crime
thriller appeals to them. The responses for liking it were
that they keep people intrigued because of the mystery of
who committed the crime often. I feel like this is a good
sign with our storyline being based around a crime and the
audience not knowing who had done it. When looking at
the genre selections in general over all of the age ranges, I
had noticed that crime was 3rd overall and it therefore
suggests that there is a wide age range that enjoy crime
based films. This suggests that our film would be
successful overall.

8. What I learnt from my
survey
When looking through the comments at the end when picking out a
favourite genre, overall there were 3 comments which either said
Crime or Thriller. When looking at the individual's responses, I can see
that 2 of the respondents are 35-44, and 55+ however one of these is
15-24 which I found interesting and reassuring that this would attract
our decided target audience of 15-24 year olds. I feel like the fact that
our characters in our film are younger and adolescents, it would attract
this sort of age group. Stereotypically a Crime based film will base
around middle aged adults and possibly why there were a lot of adults
in my survey that felt more attracted to a Crime/Thriller film in
comparison to 15-24 year olds. One person was in the 0-15 year group
and also did not feel like they would enjoy a crime/thriller which
therefore reassures us as a group that the target audience should be no
lower than a 15-24 year group.