Target Audience Research

In 2015 there is only one fantasy in the top 10 film of the year according to Box Office Mojo. Cinderella is number six in this chart with a total gross of $201,151,353. Even though this is the only fantasy in the top ten, it shows that there is a big audience for fantasy films if the film appeals to the target audience. There is no thrillers in the top ten which shows that it has a niche audience. However, by joining the two genres together it could appeal to a mainstream audience.

The most popular fantasy according to Box Office Mojo is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 making $381,011,219. There are five of the Harry Potter films in the top ten which shows that they appealed to lots of people. This tells me that in order to make a good fantasy film I need to add aspects of those similar to Harry Potter.

Harry Potter is a fantasy so, adding some thriller into my film opening will appeal to even more people making the target audience more mainstream.

On ‘The Numbers’ website they have a Box Office comparison for All-time top-grossing films and it shows no fantasy films in the top seven. However, there is a thriller. Titanic is a thriller/suspense and is at the top of the chart making $2,207,615,668. This shows that the film was popular and appealed to a mainstream audience. This data can help me with my film opening as it shows me what people want to see within this genre so I can include aspects of it which will link into the fantasy side too.

According to imdb the top-grossing fantasy/thriller film is number 57 in its chart. The film Ghost was released in 1990 and made $218,000,000. This tells me that the fantasy thriller genre appealed to a large audience in that year but no longer has a popularity amongst other genres. This help me with my film opening as I now know that to make it stand out against other films I need to include something different that will appeal to a big target audience.

On the Box Office Mojo website the top five films of the week (Oct 23rd – Oct 29th) contain one thriller and one fantasy. The thriller is Bridge of Spies which is number 3 and the fantasy is The Last Witch Hunter which is number 4 in the chart. This means that these two genres are popular with a mainstream audience.