Using the British Film Industry’s (BFI) website I collected photographic clippings from the Industry Statistical Yearbook as evidence to show the thriller movies reception over the years of film in the UK.

Firstly, I looked at the popularity of particular genre, specifically the thriller genre in order to conclude themes within popular thriller movies in which I’d incorporate in my own thriller opening.

This is the box office results for the top 20 films released in the UK and Republic of Ireland, 2014:

As seen above, the thriller films (according to the genre determined by IMBD) most popularly liked (shown through box office sale) in 2014 were:-‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1’-‘Gone Girl’-‘The Imitation Game’

Which is a vastly different amount compared action genre:-‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’-‘The Lego Movie’-‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’-‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1’-‘Guardians of the Galaxy’-‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’-‘How to Train Your dragon 2’-‘The Amazing Spiderman 2’-‘Gone Girl’-‘Intersteller’-‘Transformers: Age of Exinction’-‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’-‘Malicifent’-’22 Jump Street’

This is a table of films released in the UK and Republic of Ireland by genre, 2014 (ranked by average widest point of release)

This table proves how thrillers, on average didn’t do so well last year. The genre as a whole on average grossed £58.5 million on box office, the seventh from top genre.

These tables below show the fluctuation of highest grossing films over time. The first table shows statistics for the highest grossing films from 2001-1012 and the second shows statistics for UK qualifying films at the UK box office 1989-2014.

Out of the movies included in these tables, the only thriller movies are:‘Casino royale’‘The Dark knight rises’

Secondly, I looked at audience’s reception to particular films. I wanted to study variables within audiences (such as age) that alter the viewings of films, especially what type of audiences watch thriller films. Such information would allow my group to incorporate themes within these thrillers that apply to the whole population, rather than gender or age specific.

From this table, I can gather that the thriller genre is not a popular choice with the age group 7-14. Films such as ‘One Direction: This is Us’ is in the documentary/music genre, ‘Wreck-it Ralph’ is in the animation/comedy/adventure genres, ‘Despicable me 2’ is in the animation/comedy/family genres, ‘Monsters University’ is in the animation/adventure/comedy, ‘The Croods’ is in the animation/adventure/comedy, ‘Frozen’ is in the animation/comedy/adventure genres, ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ is in the adventure/family/fantasy genres and ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’ is in the adventure/fantasy genres. From this information I can come to the conclusion that the most popular genre for age groups 7-14 is animation and adventure as these provide appropriate conventions for such audiences. I can make the assumption that most thriller films are aged at 12, 15, 18 rather than PG/U/G due to the genre conventions such as murder and violence. Consequently, our thriller opening does not appeal to age groups 7-14 as our film incorporates aspects of gore and murder.

From this table, I can collect more information that will help me discover age groups interested in the thriller genre. Films such as ‘Fast & Furious 6’ and ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ are in the thriller genre however they are both featured in much more popular genres. The action genre includes 7/10 of these films, making it the most popular for the 15-24 age group. This information helps solidify the results found whilst researching specific genre popularity, where I found that action was the most popular on the average for the population. Surprisingly, only 2 of the featured 10 films are thrillers, making me believe that the thriller genre, although somewhat appreciated by the ‘younger generation’, is not very successful with those under 25. As there is around 50% of viewers for both featured thriller genred films, I can come to the assumption that there is a popular confusion of the thriller genre with action/adventure as they all tend to mix in well-known films.

The information gathered from this table may seem surprising and somewhat confusing, however it can be said that the obvious interest in popular ‘childish’ films like ‘The Croods’ and ‘Frozen’ is due to the average age of parenthood being mid 20s and therefore parents frequently take their young children to the cinema to view animated films. I concluded that these results should not be accounted for as most 35-44 aged people aren’t particularly interested in animated films, but are in fact more interested in the adventure genre. The most popular genre with these featured films is adventure and comedy as 3/5 (for both genres) films are of this genre, with the thriller genre having only one featured film ‘Gravity’. This particular thriller is a sub-genre of Sci-Fi, and in learning this information, I noticed that it is not possible to include sci-fi elements in our thriller piece.

Using this information, I can gather that the age group 45-54 view a variety of different genres, however thriller isn’t one of them. Genres such as crime, comedy, drama, musical, action, mystery, romance, biography, sci-fi, adventure and action were all genres featured in the films above. The most popular genre was drama, with 6/10 films having that genre, a close second is comedy which had 5/10 featured films. Therefore, I can come to the conclusion that the thriller genre isn’t widely viewed amongst the 45-54 aged UK population, and that they prefer less thrill inducing, action-packed films. This information benefits our group as it allows us to

The tables above show the how gender affects the genre viewed. According to these results, the drama genre is most popular with females whilst males prefer action. It seems that men like similar genres like action, adventure, thriller whilst women prefer a variety of romance, drama, musical. Upon analysing this information, our group would ultimately like to appeal to both genders therefore we would incorporate variations of the action and drama genre, with the opening wholely thriller.

Using this information, I can gather that the age group 45-54 view a variety of different genres, however thriller isn’t one of them. Genres such as crime, comedy, drama, musical, action, mystery, romance, biography, sci-fi, adventure and action were all genres featured in the films above. The most popular genre was drama, with 6/10 films having that genre, a close second is comedy which had 5/10 featured films. Therefore, I can come to the conclusion that the thriller genre isn’t widely viewed amongst the 45-54 aged UK population, and that they prefer less thrill inducing, action-packed films. This information benefits our group as it allows us to