You’re a little over 3 years behind the times on this. First prize
was awarded on Sept 2009 and the Business article you link
is also Sept. 2009.
"In the second contest, the company will award two $500,000 prizes, a preliminary award after six months, the other after a year and a half. "
So the second contest ended March 2010 and March 2011. Do
you know who won?
This system does not suggest how successful a movie will be. It
improves the accuracy of predicting what movie someone might
enjoy based on what they have enjoyed in the past.
Using your John Carter example - it’s quite clear that many people
enjoy sci-fi/fantasy/action movies. So it’s clear than many people
would enjoy “John Carter”. But just because many people like
sci-fi/fantasy/action movies doesn’t mean they will pay to see all
sci-fi/fantasy/action movies that are released. So they wait until
the movie is released on Netflix rather than pay to see it in a
theater or buy a copy.
What people may enjoy and what they actually buy are very different.
There may be some predictability, if one algorithm is better than the other, but we'll have to see. I wonder what those algorithms would have said about John Carter - or Battleship beating Hunger Games in DVD sales.
Hunger Games - 5,777,664 units, $100,953,240
Battleship - 689,650 units, $12,649,359
John Carter - 1,059,463, units $18,470,437
John Carter sold 526,928 ($8,952,507) units in its first week
Hunger Games sold 2,176,055 ($36,971,174) units in its first week
John Carter dropped out of the top 30 9 weeks later with 1,059,463 ($18,470,437) units sold.
Hunger Games is ranked #6 this week and selling strong. 5,777,664 ($100,953,240) units sold to date.