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Does Thanking Too Many People in the Credits Indicate a Movie is Bad? (stephenfollows.com) 54

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Film data researcher Stepehen on his blog: David Wilkinson got in touch yesterday asking for advice on his new crowdfunding campaign. One of the topics he wanted to chat about was the 'cost' of offering a "Thanks" credit to his backers. This involves awarding someone who backs the film a credit on the movie under the "With Thanks" section. This name check would appear at the end of the movie and, crucially, on IMDb. On the face of it, there is no cost to offering an almost infinite number of these as it would just be a case of a longer end credit crawl and IMDb doesn't charge for listing credits.

However, David brought up an anecdote from his time as a distributor. In conversations with fellow film sales professionals, the topic of 'how to spot a bad movie' came up. One participant said that they regard having too many 'With Thanks' credits as a red flag. The others agreed and added that the number of producers listed on a movie was similarly useful in spotting a bad film. These are just the kind of industry beliefs that I love to test. This week I'm going to tackle the 'With Thanks' credits and then next week I'll turn to producing credits. I gathered data on 8,096 movies released in US cinemas between 2000-19 (i.e. pre-pandemic), taking note of their number of credited/thanked individuals, their IMDb score (to stand in for audience views) and Metascore (to sample the views of critics). Conclusion: "A simple and pleasing result. The industry belief that having more than the average number of people thanked in the credits means the movie is bad is flat-out wrong."
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Does Thanking Too Many People in the Credits Indicate a Movie is Bad? More

Does Thanking Too Many People in the Credits Indicate a Movie is Bad?

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  • When a simple link would suffice? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:05PM (#63272831) Homepage Journal

    Why not a link to a website? Basically a simple database that would allow people to look for donors by various attributes?

    (Yeah, of course I'm thinking in terms of a CSB, but it would also be relevant to adding that "financial model" tab to smartphone applications. In theory, OSS means anyone could tinker with the software, but in practice, messing with another person's code is problematic. Different problems if the other person is a better or worse programmer, even including your past self.)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Why not a link to a website? Basically a simple database that would allow people to look for donors by various attributes?

      (Yeah, of course I'm thinking in terms of a CSB, but it would also be relevant to adding that "financial model" tab to smartphone applications. In theory, OSS means anyone could tinker with the software, but in practice, messing with another person's code is problematic. Different problems if the other person is a better or worse programmer, even including your past self.)

      Because links d

      • I like how there are literally like 15 "executive producers" in the "Picard" series. Alex Kurtzman was certainly trying to demonstrate how humble he is by raising everyone to his level.
        • Yeah, there is a huge difference between a show like Picard having 15 executive producers and "Jonnie and Jill's awesome movie presented by Blue Apron and the kickstart krew". GIGO

    • Who will follow that link? Way less people than those few sitting trough all the long (and boring) ending credits.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        I was writing on the theory that they mostly wanted to help create the movie, not buy cheap and fake "glory". Read charity versus X?

      • Nobody sits through the credits either. Everyone is in the bar down the street on their second beer by the time that's on screen.

        The old way of doing credits was at the start when they said, "Starring blah blah Directed by blah blah" and then the movie was underway. At the end it said "The End."

        Everyone actually saw the credits then. Credit inflation (second assistant to the guy bringing the coffee to the set) led to the twenty minutes of credits that roll at the end of some movies now.

    • Re:When a simple link would suffice? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @03:55PM (#63273227)
      Because that won't get you an IMDB page, where as a "thanks" or "special thanks" credit will. Which is why a lot of people back these films at those levels.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        Thanks for the clarification. Why doesn't the IMDB just auction the pages directly for more cash? Don't tell me Amazon has enough profit already.

    • A person thanked in this manner will now show up in an imdb search. for lots of people, that's worth something in bragging rights.

    • People like to see their names carved in stone for all eternity to see.

  • Thanks for that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      When it works, science is boring. Couldn't they have at least fudged some numbers to create controversy?

      • Problem is science doesn't matter. It's not "A simple and pleasing result. The industry belief that having more than the average number of people thanked in the credits means the movie is bad is flat-out wrong" that you're up against, it's the belief itself. As long as the industry believes X, you have to play by their rules even if the industry is wrong.

    • Does patting a hunchback's hump really bring good luck?

  • Wow (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

    Must be a REALLY slow news day...

  • I can finally cross this one off the list of things I care about. As an aside, the shift-G feature in the vi editor is awesome.

  • Too many screenwriters (meaning more than one, or perhaps two at the very most) is certainly a bad sign.

    Can't think of any other reliable indicators of merit, though. What difference does it make who gets thanked for providing productioin support? Some movies need more, some less.

    • Completely agree. No one will scroll through the IMDB page before seeing a movie to see how many people they thanked.

  • was successfully disproven. Maximum efficiency!

  • Diversity statements indicate a bad movie. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Asynchronously ( 7341348 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @03:10PM (#63273031)

    I first noticed this with A Wrinkle In Time when they showed a 5 minute video before the movie about how diverse the cast and crew were. I knew right away the movie would be garbage, and it was.

  • Low-Budget (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @03:11PM (#63273033) Homepage Journal

    Some low-budget films barter an on-screen credit for a resource. The starving artists also have more to gain by showing some gratitude than the Fat-George-Lucas types would.

    Those low-budget films are usually better than Hollywood Megafilms.

    Yet the CG-heavy films can have 20 minutes of credits and blow chunks too.

    Still there's a legit place for over-crediting.

  • I looked up some movies I liked and didn't like that came out in theaters to compare the number of Thanks. I see a lot of movies. I consider Movie 43 the worst movie I saw in theaters, and it only had 1 Thanks. Fear is the worst movie I've seen this year in theaters, and it only had one Thanks. Good movies tend not to be released in January, but the best movie with a 2023 release was Missing. It had one thanks. I looked up my favorite movie from 2022, Northman, and it had 7. It was not nominated for best p
  • It's just a scroll of words while we furiously google "(name of movie scene after credits)" to decide if we can leave the theater or turn off the movie at home.
  • I don't believe his data is significant, without seeing which movies they are. Any marvel movie gets decent reviews these days, its sad. However, the best sign that a movie is going to be god awful is if it was crowd sourced. Never been a good one yet.
  • It's much like corporations with legions of vice presidents mostly in charge of checking hall passes, and some sanitation engineers in charge of toilet servers. On many movies with hordes of thanked workers, much of the crowd worked on CGI. My position is that any non-animated movie that is more than 5% CGI ought to have been a cartoon and it is mostly junk. cough Endgame cough. cough Multiverse cough. cough Marvel cough. cough blue people cough.

  • No (Score:4, Informative)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:30PM (#63273313)

    It means they had no real money to do the movie.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • 500 mph on the screen.

  • There are way better indicators (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @05:20PM (#63273457)

    1) Too many writers/directors/other staff you usually need only one or a few.
    If you see 2, 3 or even more directors, especially if they don't work together but instead consecutively, it's usually a pretty good indicator that either some of them were incompetent and got fired or were pissed off with some part of the crew and just left in a huff. Either means that you have two parts that don't fit together because the conflicting directors had conflicting "vision" (which is yet another reminder that someone who has "visions" should seek professional help but not bother the rest of the world with them). Same for writers, if a script needs 5+ people to polish the turd, don't bother.

    2) Endless production time.
    If a movie in in production for YEARS and it's not something akin to the Lord of the Rings with a run time long enough that you can make a fortune selling Prep-H in front of the theater, it's a pretty good indicator that they were pissing about, wasting budget and didn't have enough budget left to make post halfway decent. Which gets me to...

    3) Reshoots when post already started (or even later)
    If you get reshoots of crucial scenes after post already happened or, worse, after the test screenings happened because the audience was SO put off that you basically had to return to the drawing board because your movie is a turd, polishing it with new scenes won't make it better. It will only make it more confusing since the scenes somehow don't fit into the existing movie, you can't just reshoot half the movie because the budget doesn't allow it and you end up with plot holes large enough to move whole planetary systems through them.

    4) If something unrelated gets paraded out as the big selling point.
    If they start making the "diversity" of the cast a big issue, if they talk at length about how environmentally friendly or eco-conscious the movie is, if they spend hours talking about this or that charity that benefits greatly from it, it generally means they try to avoid talking about the movie and its content. Take a wild guess why that could be the case.

    5) If all you see in the trailers are the shock-and-awe CGI scenes
    Don't get me wrong, action movies live and die with good effects. But if they are supposed to carry the movie because the plot is only the threadbare frame that keeps those CGI fests together, you are looking at a movie that had no budget for a script, for actors worth the name, for proper pacing and anything else because it ALL went into making sure the effects blow you out of your seat. You might like it, I don't.

    So no, it's not the length of the credit that indicate a bad movie. There are way, way better red flags to look out for.

    • Same for writers, if a script needs 5+ people to polish the turd, don't bother.

      Standard practice in Hollywood is to only credit the two most prominent screenwriters regardless of how many were on the project. The credits won't help you there. The exception is the ampersand vs "and". Sometimes you see three writers with one pair jouned with an ampersand.

      especially if they don't work together but instead consecutively

      What a lot of people don't realise is when credits say "x and y" it means x and y worked on the project at different times with different drafts. Usually one was brought in after another was fired. "x & y" on the other hand means x

      • Standard practice in Hollywood is to only credit the two most prominent screenwriters regardless of how many were on the project. The credits won't help you there. The exception is the ampersand vs "and". Sometimes you see three writers with one pair jouned with an ampersand.

        That might still indicate a good script, if you're dealing with a writer team that has a history together. I'm thinking of the infamous Zucker, Abrahams & Zucker trio that gave us such comedy pearls like KFM and Naked Gun. But if you have two or three writers that usually work solo, run.

  • If the movie was bad, I ain't going to want my name associated with it in the credits.

  • Headline:
    "Does Thanking Too Many People in the Credits Indicate a Movie is Bad? "

    Conclusion:
    "The industry belief that having more than the average number of people thanked in the credits means the movie is bad is flat-out wrong."

    Yup. Betteridge's Law still working

  • In general I'd expect a film with a larger budget to be generally "larger" (more people, locations, etc) and to entail more thanks.

    I'd also expect a larger budget to generally correlate with higher reviews.

    So the default assumption is that as budget increases you get both higher reviews and higher "thanks".

    Getting the budget might be tricky, but I'd be curious to see what happened if you start controlling for other likely co-variates of budget like cast size.

  • If the stars of an upcoming Hollywood movie visit Australia to give interviews, or even attend the premiere, the movie is likely to be a flop. I have a pretty good hit rate with that one.
    Viewers of the Today Show on Channel 9 take note: if the interview is done by Brooke Boney rather than Richard Wilkins, the bigger the probability the movie is a flop. Since they had nothing to do with the creation of the movie, this isn't inherent to some quality of the interviewer, just an observation I have made.

  • See most publications by nature. I've read multiple article abstracts with > 50 'authors'. And automatically reject them. WITH REASON.
  • Maybe the hollywood types who make movies of their own like to watch the credits. But none of us Mere Mortals do. I wouldn't know a gaffer from a grip from a best boy if my life depended on it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wed128 ( 722152 )

      Well the gaffer is the guy who controls the tape, the grip holds the camera really tight to keep the image steady, and the best boy is better then all of the other boys. Hope this helps.

  • The rule says the answer is no, but I am sorry, in this case the answer is actually yes. You cannot exploit the rule like this.

  • Wow, this is what we get for news on here. Who cares how many names are in the credits? Has zero baring on the movies quality at all. I know if I was involved in a movie, it would be nice to have my name in the credits. Adding 100 more names doesn't diminish the movie at all.

  • Worldwide productions are more readily available now than in the past. I have noticed that productions with national or regional government funding credits, often have more extensively detailed production credits. Also, there are a lot of effects and other work categories that now get farmed out to specialty organizations worldwide, and many of these show extensive credits.

  • Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

  • 99.9999999 percent of movies are generic background noise for autists

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