Research on Genre, Audiences Perception, and Characters

Hey guys! As suggested in my previous post, I would be looking into how the genre in perceived by audiences and how that would relate to other aspects of the film, mainly the character for this post. So I started my search to compare female viewership of adventure films compared to male vierwership. The task turned out to be more complicated and difficult then thought of, but thankfully I found that on AMC Filmsite, the article "Adventure Films Part 1" states that the genre has similar aspects in both the filming and writing process to action films. Based on this statement I looked into how each gender (male and female) receive different genres and found it exciting to see that both males and females enjoy action films. Actually, at least 60% of the women and men surveyed said that action was their favorite genre. This further pushed my adventure genre idea to be the genre to follow. So based on the characteristics of adventure films and how it is received by audiences I feel comfortable coming down to the decision the adventure will be the genre I follow.

With this in mind I have been thinking a lot about the main character that adventure films rely on so heavily. As I told you before I watched the Indian Jones Trilogy and really studied the main character and what elements allowed Harrison Ford to really drive the story and plot of the movie. I looked into the characteristic outfits, the use of background story to build the character, and the shots and how it emphasized his importance. I also wandered off into the video game world to study a plot with very well known adventure theme and even better known protagonist, Uncharted. Although I understand that video games and films are very different in several aspects, I wanted to look at another great example of a strong male character in an adventure genre form of media.


However, I also wanted to watch an adventure film that had a strong heroic self-driven character that was a female. So I watched and studied Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie playing Lara Croft. The movie is a video game adaption and it destroyed the box office. Wikipedia explained the following. "Tomb Raider was a box office success. The movie debuted at number one with $48.2 million, giving Paramount its second-best debut and the fifth-highest debut of 2001. It beat the opening record for a film featuring a female protagonist...as well as the opening record for a video game adaptation...and is the fifth most successful video game adaptation to date, behind Warcraft, The Angry Birds Movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Resident Evil: Afterlife although it is still #1 based on the number of the tickets sales, attendance and adjustment based on today's ticket price gross. Adjusted by inflation, when compared to new releases, the movie has grossed $188,872,700 in America alone is ticket-wise has sold more than 20 million. The movie has grossed a total of $274,703,340 worldwide. An updated adjusted box office would bring the movie's box office around $350 million." In other words, the female protagonist killed it. Viewers and the audience thought that the protagonist propelled the story line forward and also allowed a larger female viewership to see the film. 

The next time you hear from me I will be getting back to you on my main character and how he or she will influence the film, outlines and layout drawings for my storyline, and additional plot aspects. Also, a shooting schedule will be posted you can follow along with my work. Stay tuned!!


Wikipedia contributors. "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 Mar. 2017. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

"What is your favorite movie/television genre? (by gender)." Statista. 2017, https://www.statista.com/statistics/254115/favorite-movie-genres-in-the-us/. Accessed 11 March 2017.