How to Save a Bad Movie

Is a bad movie review even worse than no movie review at all? Studios often refrain from pre-screening movies for critics if they believe the movie will get bad reviews, but does the policy pay off? Thomas Bartlett cites a recent paper by Alexander Brown, Colin Camerer, and Dan Lovallo that claims it does. The authors found that “cold opening appears to generate a box office premium (compared to similar-quality movies that are pre-reviewed, and including many other controls), which is consistent with the hypothesis that some consumers are overestimating quality of movies that are opened cold.” [%comments]