For years, studios have operated with only a vague understanding of who’s buying tickets to their films even as their leadership has publicly claimed to have an indelible connection with consumers. Part of the ignorance stems from the makeup of the business. Movie studios have largely been wholesalers that ship their product to movie theaters and later, when their films premiere on home entertainment platforms, to digital and physical retailers such as Amazon and Walmart.
That arm’s-length relationship with consumers is beginning to change, however. In the process, a business that relied on instinct is becoming empirical; it’s a shift that’s analogous to the one baseball underwent when sabermetrics overtook scouting reports.