[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-150622-en":3,"doc-seo-150622-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":92},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},150622,1099514068365,"Aurelia","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/10000253d8d9f28188e?_k=1776742907772140068",8,"Research & Report","Predicting Romantic Comedy Success From Content - Research","Predicting romantic comedy success investigates whether changes in scripts’ latent linguistic and thematic content are linked to measurable outcomes in reviews, awards, and financial earnings. Using a linguistic model trained on nearly 200 romantic comedy films, the study finds that relationship-centered thematic content shows a positive association with earnings, with mediation through the number of theaters screening the films. The work positions internal textual features as potential predictors alongside traditional external drivers such as budgets and star power.","Predicting Romantic Comedy Success From Content  \nMELISSA M. MOORE  \nYOTAM OPHIR1  \nUniversity at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA  \nPredicting film success has proven challenging, with prior research examining factors including budget, production studios, and stars, to varied degrees of accuracy. Missing was the impact of film scripts and latent linguistic features, examined here through textual analysis . Recent computational study identified the latent thematic content of nearly 200 romantic comedy films, revealing an increasing focus on romantic relationships and tumultuous courtship. We harness the same linguistic model to test whether changes in thematic content are associated with success in reviews, awards, and financial earnings .  \nWe find relationship-centered content is positively associated with earnings, mediated by the number of theaters .  \nKeywords: cinema/film, cultural studies, Hollywood, media economics, media industries  \nRomantic comedy films (romcoms) reflect and shape our cultural understanding of romance, courtship, and gender relations (Segrin & Nabi, 2002) . Nevertheless, like other forms of entertainment media, the genre has been considered low-brow and superficial, and therefore largely unworthy of critical review or scientific study (McDonald, 2007) . Despite being dismissed as “chick flicks,” romcoms are widely favored among 76% of audience members across varied demographics (Morning Consult & The Hollywood Reporter, 2018) . They also have an economic foothold; the 10 top-grossing romcoms alone earned a combined $1.7 billion dollars (BoxOfficeMojo [BOM], n.d.) . Ultimately, romantic comedy is a popular, successful, and impactful genre worthy of more detailed examination .  \nAlthough the genre as a whole is successful and popular, very little is known about what makes aromcom more or less successful over other films in the genre . Those in the film industry often express the sentiment that “nobody knows anything,” as success is nearly impossible to predict even for experienced professionals (Walls, 2005, p. 1) . The problem of predicting the success or failure of a cultural object is not unique to films . For example, some in the world of books have argued that success is mostly a matter of luck, almost a random occurrence (Archer & Jockers, 2016) . Likewise, artist Nia King has argued that the  \nMelissa M. Moore: [mmoore6@buffalo.edu](mmoore6@buffalo.edu)  \nYotam Ophir: [yotamoph@buffalo.edu](yotamoph@buffalo.edu)  \n[Date submitted: 2022-03-02](Date submitted: 2022-03-02)  \n1 We greatly appreciate the contributions from our research assistant, Irena Cao, who collected much of the metadata that facilitated our analyses .  \nCopyright © 2023 ( Melissa M. Moore and Yotam Ophir) . Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at [http://ijoc.org](http://ijoc.org).  \n2622 Melissa M. Moore and Yotam Ophir International Journal of Communication 17(2023)  \nvalue of art is largely arbitrary (Clements, 2016) . In fact, among artists, writers, and publishers, there seems to be a common truism that “success is all about an established name, marketing dollars, or expensive publicity campaigns”(Archer & Jockers, 2016, p. 6) .  \nHowever, recent studies, and especially those relying on computational methods for the analysis of big data (Archer & Jockers, 2016; Joseph, 2019), have managed to identify latent features that are predictive of success . Importantly, some research demonstrates that success could be predicted not merely from factors external to the artistic object itself (marketing, star power, and so on) but also from objective features internal to the object—or, in the context of books, the text and linguistic components (Archer & Jockers, 2016) . Despite important advancements in methodological tools and theory, little is known about the predictors of success in films, or, in particular, film genres . The current study aims to fill that s","cbCaitNbhOlU9v8Z","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitNbhOlU9v8Z","pdf",315696,1,22,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Background on romantic comedy and film success prediction\n# Methods and Data\n## Linguistic model and thematic content extraction\n# Results\n## Relationship-centered content and mediated earnings\n# Discussion\n## Implications for internal script features and mediation mechanism","[{\"question\":\"What question does the study address about romantic comedy success?\",\"answer\":\"It tests whether changes in latent thematic content in romantic comedy scripts are associated with success in reviews, awards, and financial earnings.\"},{\"question\":\"How is success linked to content in the study’s findings?\",\"answer\":\"Relationship-centered content is positively associated with earnings, and this effect is mediated by the number of theaters screening the films.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the study add compared with prior research?\",\"answer\":\"It emphasizes internal linguistic and thematic script features, rather than relying only on external factors like budget and star power or limited plot summaries.\"}]","Predicting Romantic Comedy Success From Content - Research | PDF",1787823991,55,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":87,"head_meta":89,"extra_data":91,"updated_unix":28},"predicting-romantic-comedy-success-from-content-research","",{"@graph":36,"@context":86},[37,54,69],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,51],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/predicting-romantic-comedy-success-from-content-research/150622/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":63,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":64,"interactionStatistic":65},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":41,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-04","2026-08-27",true,{"@type":66,"interactionType":67,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":68},"ViewAction",{"@type":70,"mainEntity":71},"FAQPage",[72,78,82],{"name":73,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":75},"What question does the study address about romantic comedy success?","Question",{"text":76,"@type":77},"It tests whether changes in latent thematic content in romantic comedy scripts are associated with success in reviews, awards, and financial earnings.","Answer",{"name":79,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":80},"How is success linked to content in the study’s findings?",{"text":81,"@type":77},"Relationship-centered content is positively associated with earnings, and this effect is mediated by the number of theaters screening the films.",{"name":83,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":84},"What does the study add compared with prior research?",{"text":85,"@type":77},"It emphasizes internal linguistic and thematic script features, rather than relying only on external factors like budget and star power or limited plot summaries.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":52,"og:type":88,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":59,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":90,"canonical":52},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":93},[94,98,102,106,111,116,121,124,129,132,136],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":95,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":97},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":47,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":99,"show_sort_weight":100,"slug":101},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":53,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":103,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":105},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":107,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":108,"show_sort_weight":109,"slug":110},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":112,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":113,"show_sort_weight":114,"slug":115},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":118,"show_sort_weight":119,"slug":120},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},30,"research-report",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":130,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":131},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":133,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":134,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":135},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":137,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":138,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":139},19,"General","general"]