Examining genre success, co-occurrence, release, and production of 9,068 films over twenty years

Abstract

Understanding macro-level trends in the entertainment industry is vital to the advancement of mass communication theories. The current paper works towards this end by providing a representative layout of genre patterns across the film industry. We analyze 9,068 films released from 1997 to 2017, and examine genre in terms of success, co-occurrence, release, and production. Consistent with past work, results highlight differences between genres that garner popularity (e.g., Action) and acclaim (e.g., Drama). Moreover, we found four unique genre clusters within our data indicating that specific genres tend to be featured together more frequently than others (e.g., Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasy, and Musical). We also demonstrate which genres have had increased (e.g., Adventure), decreased (e.g., Comedy), and consistent (e.g., Thriller) production across the 20-year span. Finally, we found differential release patterns across the calendar year, such that popular genres (e.g., Science Fiction) are frequently released during Summer and acclaimed genres (e.g., Biography) are frequently released during Fall and Winter. Taken together, the findings describe the mass-market film landscape and demonstrate variance in the production and appeal of different genres over time. Thus, these data can serve as a first step toward studying how the entertainment industry influences and reacts to audiences’ media preferences.