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‘Google Blockbuster’ Algorithm Revealed (On Conan)

Google recently put out a whitepaper claiming that Google searches can predict box office totals with 94% accuracy. The paper describes how Google arrives at its results by observing searches for a mo...
‘Google Blockbuster’ Algorithm Revealed (On Conan)
Written by Chris Crum
  • Google recently put out a whitepaper claiming that Google searches can predict box office totals with 94% accuracy. The paper describes how Google arrives at its results by observing searches for a movie’s trailer, then combining it with the movie’s seasonality and franchise status, as well as a movie’s paid search click volume in the week before the movie opens.

    It’s all pretty interesting, and now in parody land, Google has announced Google Blockbuster, a new algorithm for predicting movie success (via Conan):

    In the video, “Google engineer” Jeff Bergsma explains, “Simply upload your movie trailer to Google Blockbuster, hit return, and in a few seconds, our algorithm queries a series of data points related to the film.”

    These include:

    How many dimensions is it (3D? 4D?)?

    What is the acreage of any oncoming asteroid?

    Is Tim Allen in the film?

    How many blocks has the director bust in the past?

    Are any stars trekked, warred or danced with?

    Have you at least considered Tim Allen?

    How many years past the optimal age is the protagonist getting for this shit?

    What is the lowest common Wayans brother?

    If Tim Allen isn’t in the film, why not? Has he read the script? How many messages did you leave with his manager?

    What is the weddings to funerals ratio?

    How dirty is the film’s dancing on a scale of sterile to grotesque?

    How channed are the films Jackies and/or Tatums? Maybe a nice leather chair from the pottery barn.

    Is there synchronic reliability between the film’s fastness, its furiosity and its dieselessence?

    Have you tried luring Tim Allen with non-monetary perks?

    Google, he explains, then takes the answers to all of those questions, discards them, and just records the view count of your trailer on YouTube.

    “And that gives us a pretty good indication. 94%.”

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