Chennai: Is it possible to assess ahead of a movie's making or release if it would make the box-office coffers ringing or just bomb right away?
After almost a decade's research (2005-15), a movie personality from Tamil Nadu, Yuhi Sethu, has got a doctorate from the University of Madras on his study and preparation of a "prescriptive formulary" which is - in simple terms - a table to determine the prospects of a movie's chances of success or failure at the box-office.
As part of his research on 300 movies, Tamil, Hindi and English films were studied to test the formula.
"As part of my research study, I submitted on the day of Tamil film 'Kuselan's' launch in 2008 that it would flop after assessing it based on my evaluation table," he told PTI. "It was a remake of Malayalam movie 'Katha Parayumpol' and since I knew the star-cast and the story line, I made the assessment even before it was released," he said.
Similarly, "..The Hindi movie, Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai starrer Guzaarish was assessed based on the table after seeing the first show, I predicted that it would be a flop and it happened," he said.
"I could not make an assessment before its release as I did not have access to the relevant data."
He said it could be called an advance result evaluation grid and is in the form of a simple table with about 20 major attributes broadly enlisted under three segments labelled as primary, internal and external.
"My findings are the first step towards demonstrating that cinema is at least a quasi-science and it could be brought under a scientific lens for evaluation."
Yuhi Sethu is also a writer-director and a popular TV host and he received the doctorate at a recent University function here.
