Anita Elberse Quotes

When a publisher spends an inordinate amount on an acquisition, it will do everything in its power to make that project a market success.

Think about trailers you see in theaters. If you're seeing a Warner Bros film, the studio might have three of the five trailers. So having a hit helps you create the next hit.

Because they are inherently social, people find value in reading the same books and watching the same movies that others do.

Because making movies is such an expensive endeavor, other media such as books and comics have long been a more feasible way to experiment with truly new ideas.

Most of my colleagues have research awards on the shelf. I have party invites.

The average movie-goer in this country sees six films in a year. That's one every two months. What the studios are trying to do is make sure it's their movie.

If anything, the impact of digital technology is creating bigger brands and bigger superstars.

If you're a film studio, you're making a movie for a foreign market. You're pursuing ideas that travel well. It changes the movies we see and how movies are made.

The entertainment business remains a business of blockbusters, and increasingly so.

Most large media firms make outsized investments to acquire and market a small number of titles with strong hit potential, and bank on their sales to make up for middling performance in the rest of their catalogs.

Anyone can see that, say, superheroes and vampires perform well at the box office. That in turn can trigger competitive bidding situations and soaring fees for people who can bring these properties to the screen. The result can be a dramatic increase in the costs of production.

No one disputes that online businesses offer much more variety than their analog counterparts.

For the first case I did with Octone, 360 deals were not at all being talked about. And then for the follow-up case, it was the focus. I wanted to see how things were changing and what the new challenges were.

What you get when you put all your resources behind a product, is you get everyone to join in.

Jay Z is building a range of businesses just on the strength of his brand. Lady Gaga has formed really interesting partnerships. Justin Bieber and his manager Scooter Braun are investing in a number of different companies and also promoting them in many ways.

With so much money invested in their most promising projects, Hollywood executives will understandably do everything in their power to make their products a success in the marketplace. Therefore, the most expensive films often also get the highest marketing budgets, and are slotted into the most favorable opening weekends.

Media companies' hit-focused marketing did not emerge in a vacuum. It reflects how consumers make choices. The truth is that consumers prefer blockbusters.