Audience Research

Biggest Films of 2015Biggest Film of the Year: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (£122 million – a new record) Genre = sci-fi, fantasy, action, adventure Target audience = “The movie is for a juvenile adult,

somebody who’s loved Star Wars their whole life and is now a grown- up, hates the prequels, and wants a Star Wars that’s just for them.” – Matt London, wired.com

Rated = PG-13 for sci-fi action violence

Biggest Independent Film of the Year: Legend (£18 million) Genre = history, crime, drama, thriller Target audience = varied however most reviews come from

males Rated = R (strong violence, language, sexual and drug

material), UK 18

- Men

- Women

- Teenagers

- Children

“Stereotypical”

Assumptions of Audiences (at a glance):

Key

Audiences are varied however the most successful films are primarily action or adventure films, or surprisingly children’s films

Top 20 Blockbuster Films of 2015

The previous slides suggest that films aimed at younger people and families have the potential to dominate popularity in films. This may be because of family orientated environments being the most common setting.

Other popular genres include action films with hybrids of adventure, fantasy and drama.

This can suggest that audiences follow Blumler and Katz’ uses and gratifications theory in that they wish to escape from reality. The high level of action and scenes of violence and excitement suggest that audiences are further interested by more extreme values in film production. This further shows that media works on a supply and demand basis, an element of the pluralist theory.