ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on quantitative data and addresses how “big data” has created a range of new options for evaluating movie and broader industry performance. It draws on quantitative data which in the context of the screen industries can include information about phenomena relevant to the film industry such as films, cinemas, distribution, and attendance. Extended data sources such as the demographic profile of audiences located in a cinema’s catchment or public transport data or even climatic data could be relevant to understanding the performance of a particular title in specific times and places. The rise of big data has also facilitated the interoperability of different datasets. For issues that may be more subjective or involve human judgement such as the artistic quality of film, then rich qualitative data may be more useful than a five-star rating system. However, a broad spectrum of issues concerning the screen industry lend themselves to analysis using quantitative data.
