Once a film is made, it goes through a screening process. This is to test how well the film will be received at the box office. This also gives a somewhat accurate indication for the studios and distributors to asses the films success. This information then is gathered and the amount of theatre the film screens in is then distributed. This is called a ‘CinemaScore’.
CinemaScore was founded by Ed Mintz in 1982. After the film has gone through the surveying process, it will then receive a grade from an ‘A+’ to ‘F’. An ‘F’ score is obviously a fail, meaning that the film shouldn’t even be released in cinemas because it will most likely make no money at the box office.
Of the films that have been scored, here are some that have received an A+:
- Titanic,
- Argo,
- Tangled,
- The King’s Speech,
- The Avengers,
- Courageous and
- Toy Story 2.
As most of the test-screen audience are enthusiastic ‘film goers’, films generally don’t score lower than a C grade. An F grade is quite rare, but here’s a list of the F grade films:
- Steven Soderberghs remake of Solaris,
- Killing Them Softly (Which was actually 6th in my top 10 for 2012),
- Bug,
- Wolf Creek,
- Darkness,
- The Box,
- The Devil Inside and,
- Silent House,
I was quite surprised to learn Wolf Creek received an F grade as I thought it was quite a chilling and well made Australian film. Also, The Box with Cameron Diaz. I thought was a good suspenseful film and better than some of those Hollywood ‘just because we can make it’ film we sometimes see at the local cinema.
Would you have given any of those eight films an F grade? Killing Them Softly and Wolf Creek definitely surprised me!
