The idea of success gets thrown around the film industry a lot. As a producer, you want each of your films to be a success for various reasons. It is the payoff from what can be years of hard work. It can also influence the trajectory of not just your career but all those of your cast and crew. Success represents both the aims of your projects and a key to the future.
Yet, success can still be a pretty subjective concept in film. Each stakeholder in the industry will have a different idea of what makes your movie a triumph. Investors, studios, audiences, and festival panels will apply their perspectives to the issue. Indeed, you may well be your film’s harshest critic and harbour a lower opinion of success than that of the wider industry.
Understanding some of the tells of success can help inform your approach to the filmmaking process. It can also more effectively frame the results for other stakeholders. Let’s take a closer look at a handful of the metrics you can consider.
By Net Income
From an industry perspective, your film’s success is most often defined by its financial results. While the press tends to express this in terms of box office receipts, this certainly isn’t an accurate measure of financial success. This is particularly the case in an environment where streaming is more accessible than theatres. Instead, studios, investors, and distributors will be paying closer attention to the net income a film makes.
A monetarily successful film comes from the return on investment (ROI). How much profit has your film made after expenses like cast and crew wages, filming permit costs, and marketing? Ad Astra (2019) may have taken around $127m box office gross against a $80m production cost. But much of the difference was eaten up by marketing that cost upwards of $50m.
Elements like traveling to festivals and campaigning for awards can help your profile, these also cut into the profits. You also need to bear in mind elements that affect the final figures, like payment of points (net or gross income percentage) as part of cast or crew remuneration.
But success isn’t just about getting to a profitable level. It’s also how you handle the proceeds. Many producers expect their films to make a loss or a modest profit at least, but that often leads them unprepared when a project is unexpectedly profitable. Sudden windfalls can present distinct challenges in the form of tax considerations and investment management, among others. While it can be exciting to see a large influx of money, it’s important to consult with financial professionals to make sure this is assessed and distributed appropriately.
By Specific Objectives
Profit on a movie is always a good outcome. But simply making huge volumes of money isn’t always attainable or even a priority. Motherless Brooklyn (2019) and Stardust (2007) both brought meagre returns in theatres but gained gradual success and enthusiastic audiences once brought to streaming platforms. As such, it’s sensible to set specific milestone objectives to hit on your road toward success. It means you and your crew can shoot for various levels of success rather than considering your project a failure if it doesn’t bring millions in revenue immediately.
As a producer, it can be helpful to think of this with a business mindset. The concept of objectives and key results (OKRs) is an effective way to establish and track a roadmap to your goals. In essence, it’s about pinpointing a larger objective — audience numbers, revenue, festival penetration — and setting manageable targets that influence reaching this. Setting these milestones should begin during the pre-production process. This gives you and your crew solid goals to build your production process around.
The OKR approach can give you some clarity on what achievements contribute to larger forms of success. You’ll find this is a factor in keeping you and your staff motivated throughout what can often be a challenging experience. It also provides you with solid success metrics to give to your investors even if you don’t quite reach your overall objectives.
By Cultural Impact
Film is a vital cultural and social art form. It can be used to draw attention to urgent issues or present ideas that are currently under-explored. Studies have shown that films can cause shifts in attitudes particularly among young audience members. This is relevant to both productions focusing on fictional narratives and documentary filmmaking. Each has a place in impacting the perspectives and actions of your audience. As such, a key measurement of success can be the way it positively affects the culture.
You can’t always control or predict what level of cultural impact your movie is going to have. But you can start to measure the success by focusing on how the film is driving discussions. Work with your crew to establish what subject areas and concept takeaways you would like audiences to grasp. You can also work with your marketing department to create hashtags and promotional content to help encourage engagement with the core social themes of your film.
However, there can also be more tangible ways your film can have a cultural impact. Particularly if the project is addressing injustices in the political or legislative system, success might be focused on its contribution to driving changes. When Handful of Ash (2007) was shown to the Kurdish parliament, the impact directly led to legislation banning the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the region.
But change can take time and your film’s impact may be difficult to measure immediately. Look for your film being cited in academic papers and on the recommendations lists of representative organisations. If your project is being promoted as a source of evidence or expertise, it is being successful in helping to shift the cultural narrative.
Conclusion
There is no single way to ascertain whether your film is successful. While financial results are the most widely publicised metric, it is far from the only important one. How you handle the profits you generate, meeting other results on the path to larger goals, and cultural impact may all be considered milestones of success. With each of these, you and your crew must plan effectively from the outset.
