Box office success thanks to artificial intelligence

Sami Arpa,cofounder of the spin-off Largo Films © 2020 Alain Herzog - Largo Films, an EPFL spin-off, unveiled its data-assisted movie-making software to producers and other movie-industry specialists today at the Berlin Film Festival. Largo's program uses artificial intelligence to generate recommendations for just about every stage of the filmmaking process - from putting together a script and soundtrack to selecting the actors and emotional register - all in just a few minutes. Movie production is a risky enterprise, even for major film studios, because the chances of a flop are just as high as those of a blockbuster. And which of these two categories a movie falls into is often unpredictable. However, new software developed by Largo Films aims to help producers better predict whether a movie will be a hit by taking an analytical approach. The software uses artificial intelligence to analyze a movie's script, estimate its box-office revenue based on how famous its actors are, and suggest what scenes could be changed to appeal to a given target audience. All that can save producers considerable time and money.