February 16th, 2023, Bhawna Singh
Ever since its release, Pathaan has been breaking records, ending Bollywood’s dry spell at the box-office. With many films lining up for showcase, latest data from YouGov reveals urban Indian audiences’ level of excitement for these upcoming releases.
YouGov assessed trailers and teasers of upcoming movies-Shehzaada, Bholaa, Tu Jhooti Mai Makkar, Jawaan and Kabzaa, to generate a Screen Appeal Test (SAT) that evaluates the level of excitement and viewership intent generated by trailers or teasers. Each trailer was rated on *seven metrics, to give a Combined Appeal Score, which is an average of the seven underlying measures of interest.
Among the tested trailers, Recall, which measures the reach that the trailers have managed to build till date was the highest for Shehzaada (at 41%) and Jawaan (40%), however it was just around the average recall across the trailers tested since the beginning of the year. Pathaan dominates this front till now with a recall of 58%.
Among the next few upcoming releases, Shehzaada seems to have the weakest chance of a great box office turnout. The trailer scored low on most metrics, such as Curiosity (measures the extent to which a trailer pushes viewers to want to get more information about the movie), Buzz (measures the word-of-mouth potential) and Eagerness to watch a movie (measured on a 10-point scale). It scored the lowest on Uniqueness (how unique is the concept/idea of the movie), way below the average score of 14%, perhaps because it is a remake of a South- Indian film.
On the other hand, Kannada-origin film Kabzaa, scored high on most of the metrics, except Recall.
Ranbir Kapoor’s next- Tu Jhooti Mai makkar, after his hit film Brahmastra, scored much high above the average on Delivery (a measure of how well the trailer can land the main plot/idea of the story), but was below average on Buzz and Eagerness to watch.
When it comes to Big Screen Pull, which indicates the percent of people who say they will watch a movie in the theatre, Kabzaa scored the highest (at 40%). Jawaan (38%) and Bholaa (37%) just about met the average score (of 37%), but the other films were far behind in the race.
The Combined Appeal Score, an average of the seven underlying measures of interest (from Likeability to Big Screen Pull) shows none of the upcoming Bollywood releases have stirred excitement among the audiences. While Bholaa just about met the average (at 32%), Shehzaada (27%), Tu Jhooti Mai Makkar (30%) and Jawaan (31%) were below the average score. Kabzaa, a South-origin film, is the only movie that scored above average (at 37%) and was at par with Pathaan. This shows the strong resonance of audiences with regional South cinema as well as highlights the film’s strong chances at the box office.
When the data was filtered by movie buffs (defined as those who love watching films and never miss catching a latest release in theatres) the situation was the same. Compared to the general population, the CAS for Kabzaa was the highest among movie buffs (66%) for all the trailers tested till now, followed by Jawaan (60%). Although scores for all other upcoming releases were lower than average (55%), seems like Shehzaada is likely to have the lowest turnout as compared to the others.
Using YouGov’s Screen Appeal Test (SAT) content creators can test various versions of a trailer, identify drivers of appeal and understand the big screen potential of their films.
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Methodology
YouGov Screen Appeal Test (SAT) is a solution to enable creators of movies, TV shows, web-series, etc. evaluate the level of excitement and viewership intent generated by their trailers or teasers.
As part of the methodology, each trailer is exposed to a total of around 500 respondents from YouGov India’s online panel, which primarily constitutes consumers from NCCS A (80%); and matches the population numbers of urban India in terms of basic demographics like age, gender, regions, and city tiers. Every trailer is rated on *seven metrics (below), which are then summarized as the Combined Appeal Score, which is an average of the seven underlying measures of interest.