By Bailee BrooksINSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH

Overall there was 52 thriller films released within the year of 2015. This means that thriller films were 6.9% of

the overall films released and making up 2.9% of the income for that year. The genre alone is highly profitable within the film market however appears to be

less popular in comparison to films such as action which generates a total box office figure of £393.9 million. This

could be due to the fact many institution companies chose to release action films as it is usually known to have the widest

audiences and will generate them the most amount of money for them.

HOW MANY THRILLER FILMS WERE RELEASED IN 2015?

Source: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-genre-and-classification-2016-06-30.pdf

Taken 3, Mad Max Fury Road, Mission: Impossible -Rogue Nation,

Fifty Shades Of Grey, Fast and Furious 7 are all thriller films in

the top ranking for box office sales in 2015. This shows that the thriller

film genre is quite popular within the pupil. Many of these films are apart of franchises which means the audience will have been built up from previous films and gained the franchise more popularity. E.g.

Fast and Furious 7 has multiple films first released in 2009 and still

continuing to the present day. Similarly all these films are created

by large institution company meaning they will have larger sums

of money to spend on advertisement for the films and a

high budget for things such as props, after effects etc. And finally all these films seem to be hybrids which means they will generate a

larger audience as they will appeal to more people.

WHICH THRILLER FILMS WERE MOST SUCCESSFUL IN THE YEAR 2015 AND

WHY?

Source: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-top-films-of-2015.pdf

Taken 3WHICH THRILLER FILMS WERE MOST SUCCESSFUL IN THE YEAR 2015 AND

WHY?

Within the table we can see one of the most successful film of 2015 within the thriller category was ‘ Taken 3’ Directed by ‘Oliver Megaton’ this filmed reached over $326 000 000. This budget is mostly likely to be influenced by the large overall budget of $48 million allowing production to be a very high quality and distribution particularly more effective. Similarly this film would have generated such a high profit due to previous films released by the franchise as well as the use of star appeal with actor ‘Liam Neeson’ thus further enticing audiences to watch the film making it the most popular.

The Dark Knight Rises

MOST SUCCESSFUL THRILLER FILM

The dark knight rises (2012) directed by Christopher Nolan is claimed to be one of the best thriller films of all time. The box office of this film shows the movie generated $448 million in revenue in the US alone, and over $100million worldwide. The film has furthermore received high reviews on film websites such as IMDb which rated the film ‘8.5/10’ and Rotten tomatoes which rated the film 87% which proves not only box office success but also audience success

AUDIENCE CHARACTERISTICS- AGE

(TAKEN 3)It is particularly hard to generate statistics when it comes to audience members and their age however the BFI posts the data in a year book that can be analysed for target audience research, (this data may not be 100% accurate as it is usually generalised) and my target audience being those who enjoy thriller I should find it useful to research what ages enjoy thriller films the most . As we can see overall 40% of the age 15-24 were viewing the film taken 3. This shows that the film was popular with the younger more teenage generations, suggesting thriller films appeal to a younger audience.

Source: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-statistical-yearbook-audiences-2015-2016-08-25.pdf

Similarly, this film is also viewed at an average of 32% by the age group of ‘15-24 years’ bas the

genre is also a thriller as is ‘Taken 3’ this furthermore suggests that the thriller is

usually aimed at young adults and teenagers which are suited

to my target audience. The starting age for this product

could be 15 as that may be what the BBFC guidelines have set the thriller genre to be, thus

meaning the thriller must be a more mature genre

AUDIENCE CHARACTERISTICS- AGE (MAD MAX: FURY ROAD)

Source: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-statistical-yearbook-audiences-2015-2016-08-25.pdf

AUDIENCE CHARACTERISTICS –

GENDER (MAD MAX: FURY ROAD)

As we can see, majority of the audience members that view this production were male (71%) even though the main characters are particularly equal genders. This suggests that the male gender enjoy the thriller genre more than female, which is a pleasing outcome as our production is particularly aimed at males and how they can defeat their gender stereotyped

Within the statistical data within the BFI website it claims that 29% of the audience that viewed Taken 3 were of social

class DE meaning they are of the lower end of the

social classes. This means that perhaps those who enjoy thriller films are

more likely to be of lower classes. This is a negative

to me as my target audience is of higher

social class (C1 +) meaning perhaps we may

not get the views we desire for our genre.

AUDIENCE CHARACTERISTICS- SOCIAL

CLASS (TAKEN 3)

Overall 41% of the audience that viewed Mad Max: Fury Road were of C1 social class grading. This shows that those of

more upper class can enjoy thriller films as well as those of lower, making it more suited to my target audience who are of

C1+

AUDIENCE CHARACTERISTICS- SOCIAL CLASS (MAD MAX: FURY ROAD)

So, in conclusion I can see that thriller is moderately popular within the thriller market however other genre’s eg action are more popular however this is due to the fact this is more widely produced than other genres, Although the audiences characteristics remain broad and varied. The

release of hybrid genres similarly make it harder to correlate any data to do with genre and how they are

viewed as they come under many categories and different audiences will appeal to different genres.

SUMMARY