Comparable Films (Comps)
From ForcaWiki, the simple encyclopedia
| In one sentence | Movies that already came out and are similar enough to a new project that people use their numbers to guess how the new movie might do. |
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| Category | Film and Television |
| Related | Box Office Receipts, American Film Market (AFM) |
Before a school bake sale, you might look at how last year's cupcake stand and cookie stand each did, and use those results as your best guess for how well your new brownie stand will do this year, since brownies are similar enough to cupcakes and cookies to make a fair comparison.
The movie business does the exact same thing with comparable films, usually just called comps or comparables. Before anyone commits money to a new movie, they look for older movies that are similar in genre, budget, cast, or audience, and study exactly how those movies performed, especially their Box Office Receipts. If several past low budget horror movies with unknown actors each earned around a similar amount, that gives everyone a reasonable, evidence-based guess for what a new, similar horror movie might earn too, instead of just hoping for the best.
Why comps matter so much
Investors and lenders often will not commit money to a movie until they have seen a report listing several comps and how each one performed. Choosing the right comps is part art and part science, since two people can honestly disagree about which older movies truly count as similar enough. That disagreement gets argued over hard during financing, because a rosier set of comps makes a new movie look like a safer bet.
Fun facts
- Distributors often study comps before agreeing to a Minimum Guarantee at events like the American Film Market, since the comps help them decide how much a new movie's rights might really be worth.
- A single movie can be used as a comp for years afterward, showing up again and again in reports for new, similar projects.
- Picking comps that make a movie look too good can backfire. If the new movie earns far less than its comps predicted, it gets much harder to raise money for that filmmaker's next project.