The New York Times

May 6, 2013

Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data

LOS ANGELES — Forget zombies. The data crunchers are invading
Hollywood.
The same kind of numbers analysis that has reshaped areas like
politics and online marketing is increasingly being used by the
entertainment industry.

Netflix tells customers what to rent based on algorithms that analyze

previous selections, Pandora does the same with music, and studios
have started using Facebook “likes” and online trailer views to mold
advertising and even films.

Now, the slicing and dicing is seeping into one of the last corners of
Hollywood where creativity and old-fashioned instinct still hold sway:
the screenplay.

A chain-smoking former statistics professor named Vinny Bruzzese —

“the reigning mad scientist of Hollywood,” in the words of one studio
customer — has started to aggressively pitch a service he calls script
evaluation. For as much as $20,000 per script, Mr. Bruzzese and a
team of analysts compare the story structure and genre of a draft
script with those of released movies, looking for clues to box-office
success. His company, Worldwide Motion Picture Group, also digs
into an extensive database of focus group results for similar films and
surveys 1,500 potential moviegoers. What do you like? What should
be changed?

“Demons in horror movies can target people or be summoned,” Mr.

Bruzzese said in a gravelly voice, by way of example. “If it’s a targeting
demon, you are likely to have much higher opening-weekend sales
than if it’s summoned. So get rid of that Ouija Board scene.”

Bowling scenes tend to pop up in films that fizzle, Mr. Bruzzese, 39,
continued. Therefore it is statistically unwise to include one in your
script. “A cursed superhero never sells as well as a guardian
superhero,” one like Superman who acts as a protector, he added.

His recommendations, delivered in a 20- to 30-page report, might

range from minor tightening to substantial rewrites: more people
would relate to this character if she had a sympathetic sidekick, for
instance.

Script “doctors,” as Hollywood refers to writing consultants, have long

worked quietly on movie assembly lines. But many top screenwriters
— the kind who attain exalted status in the industry, even if they
remain largely unknown to the multiplex masses — reject Mr.
Bruzzese’s statistical intrusion into their craft.

“This is my worst nightmare” said Ol Parker, a writer whose film

credits include “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” “It’s the enemy of
creativity, nothing more than an attempt to mimic that which has
worked before. It can only result in an increasingly bland
homogenization, a pell-mell rush for the middle of the road.”

Mr. Parker drew a breath. “Look, I’d take a suggestion from my

grandmother if I thought it would improve a film I was writing,” he
said. “But this feels like the studio would listen to my grandmother
before me, and that is terrifying.”

But a lot of producers, studio executives and major film financiers

disagree. Already they have quietly hired Mr. Bruzzese’s company to
analyze about 100 scripts, including an early treatment for “Oz the
Great and Powerful,” which has taken in $484.8 million worldwide.

Mr. Bruzzese (pronounced brew-ZEZ-ee), who is one of a very few if

not the only entrepreneur to use this form of script analysis, is
plotting to take it to Broadway and television now that he has traction
in movies.

“It takes a lot of the risk out of what I do,” said Scott Steindorff, a
producer who used Mr. Bruzzese to evaluate the script for “The
Lincoln Lawyer,” a hit 2011 crime drama. “Everyone is going to be
doing this soon.” Mr. Steindorff added, “The only people who are
resistant are the writers: ‘I’m making art, I can’t possibly do this.’ ”

Audience research has been known to save a movie, but it has also
famously missed the mark. Opinion surveys — “idiot cards,” as some
unimpressed directors call them — indicated that “Fight Club” would
be the flop of the century. It took in more than $100 million
worldwide.

But, as the stakes of making movies become ever higher, Hollywood

leans ever harder on research to minimize guesswork. Moreover,
studios have trimmed spending on internal script development. Mr.
Bruzzese is also pitching script analysis to studios as a duck-and-cover
technique — for “when the inevitable argument of ‘I am not going to
take the blame if this movie doesn’t work’ comes up,” his Web site
says.

Mr. Bruzzese taught statistics at the State University of New York at

Stony Brook on Long Island before moving into movie research about
a decade ago, motivated by a desire for more money and a childhood
love of movies.

He acknowledged that many writers are “skittish” about his service.

But he countered that it is not as threatening as it may sound.

“This is just advice, and you can use all of it, some of it or none of it,”
he said.

But ignore it at your peril, according to one production executive.

Motion Picture Group, of Culver City, Calif., analyzed the script for
“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” said the executive, who worked
on the film, but the production companies that supplied it to 20th
Century Fox did not heed all of the advice. The movie flopped. Mr.
Bruzzese declined to comment.

Mr. Bruzzese emphasized that his script analysis is not done by

machines. His reports rely on statistics and survey results, but before
evaluating a script he meets with the writer or writers to “hear and
understand the creative vision, so our analysis can be contextualized,”
he said.

But he is also unapologetic about his focus on financial outcomes. “I

understand that writing is an art, and I deeply respect that,” he said.
“But the earlier you get in with testing and research, the more
successful movies you will make.”

The service actually gives writers more control over their work, said
Mark Gill, president of Millennium Films and a client. In traditional
testing, the kind done when a film is almost complete, the writer is
typically no longer involved. With script testing, the writer can still
control changes.

One Oscar-winning writer who, at the insistence of a producer, had a

script analyzed by Mr. Bruzzese said his initial worries proved
unfounded.

“It was a complete shock, the best notes on a draft that I have ever
received,” said the writer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,
citing his reputation.

Script analysis is new enough to remain a bit of a Hollywood taboo.

Major film financiers and advisers like Houlihan Lokey confirmed
that they had used the service, but declined to speak on the record
about it. The six major Hollywood movie studios declined to
comment.

But doors are opening for Mr. Bruzzese nonetheless, in part because
he is such a character. For instance, he bills himself as a distant
relative of Einstein’s, a claim that is unverifiable but never fails to
impress studio executives.

Mr. Bruzzese, a movie enthusiast with a seemingly encyclopedic

memory of screenplays, also speaks bluntly, a rarity in Hollywood.

“All screenwriters think their babies are beautiful,” he said, taking a

chug of Diet Dr Pepper followed by a gulp of Diet Coke and a drag on
a Camel. “I’m here to tell it like it is: Some babies are ugly.”