Institution Research

The horror genre has a total of 346 movies released and many set for production. In the years they were released, the domestic gross would be $8,662,469,379, which would be equivalent to a gross of $12,729,024,148 in today’s inflation adjustment.

The most popular film genre today is

This table shows that comedy genre is the most popular dominating 23.48% of the overall market, whilst our chosen genre horror, with only 4.77% of the market. There is a lot more comedy movies however compared to horror therefore being a more popular genre to produce films for, but comedy can be incorporated into horror like many have already such as ‘Shaun of the dead’ and ‘zombieland’.

A bar graph showing the top grossing horror film distributors from 2004 – 2012

Looking at the graph above, it shows that the top film distributer of horror

films to this day is Lionsgate being responsible for the distribution of films like ‘Hostel’, ‘Saw’ and its sequels, ‘The Last Exorcism’, ‘The Possession’, ‘My Blood Valentine’ ‘The Haunting In Connecticut’ etc. The graph also shows the main popular disturbers for the horror genre.

20th Century Fox, is a film corporation and one of the 6 major American film studios. It is most popular for films such as Star Wars, Avatar and The Chronicles of Narnia. They create mostly comedy and family films like Alvin and the Chipmunks and Night at the Museum. But on the other hand, they have produced films in the genre I have chosen to work on being horror with the likes of disturbing and producing them. They distributed ‘From Hell’, ‘Jennifer’s body’ and ‘Shutter’ along with others. As 20th century fox is such a large corporation and a successful distributer as ‘Jennifer’s body’ making a worldwide gross of $31,556,061 so this would be a good corporation to choose for the distribution of our opening sequence, but they do no completely specialize in horror so it may not appeal to all their audience.

Warner Bros. is another popular and successful large film studios based in California and New York, doing distribution, production and the creation of films. Compared to 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. had produced more well-known and popular films, With 20th Century Fox sticking to more comedy/fantasy/family genres whilst Warner Bros have seemed to dabble in all different genres with great success to attract a large audience. Some of the most well known horrors such as ‘Friday the 13th’, ‘The Wickerman’, ‘Orphan’ and ‘House Of Wax’ have been distributed and in some cases also produced by Warner Brothers. Comparing the success of ‘Jennifers Body’ to ‘Friday the 13th’ making a worldwide gross of $91,379,051, our opening horror sequence would be best distributer by Warner Brothers to maximize success and sales.

Also Universal Pictures known as Universal Studios, is also one of the 6 major film studios and is one of the oldest American movie studios still in continuous production. Universal prefer to create films on Drama/Romance/Adventure and have been most successful from ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’, ‘King Kong’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’. Sticking to their ‘safe’ genres they do not tend to create many horror films but they have distributed ‘Drag Me To Hell’ and ‘The Strangers’. As Universal seems to have less

experience in my chosen genre I don’t think that this would be as suitable for the distribution of my horror opening sequence, with therefore Warner Brothers so far my still top choice.

Lionsgate is a Canadian entertainment company formed in Vancouver. As of 2007, it was the most successful independent film distribution company in North America, which as our horror opening sequence would be classed as being from an independent film company and not from a big producer this may be a good company to distribute our film sequence. Some of the most popular films created by Lionsgate were ‘Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail’ which made $41 million in its opening weekend. It distributed ‘Kick Ass’, ‘Rambo’ and ‘The Bank Job’. Their films usually stick to the similar genres of drama/action and thrillers. But on the other hand the horrors it had produced and distributed are well-known and very successful gory/psychological horrors of Saw 3D, Saw 1/2/3/4/5/6, making a total gross of $415,914,068. They also produced/distributed ‘The Last Exorcism’, ‘My Bloody Valentine’ and ‘The Eye’. Personally I think their only memorable film/films where that of the Saw series but began to decrease in popularity over time as new and more different horror films were being produced that delved into other topics and unknown stories, so I don’t think that Lionsgate would be suitable for the distribution of my type of film.