30 years of Broadway grosses visualised and analysed

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 7:21pm

Here's something I've been working on for a little while...

https://webapps.qlik.com/broadway/index.html?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=BroadwayApp&sourceID1=Social_Twitter_BroadwayApp#/home/

It contains data for every weeks Broadway grosses since 1984. The link above takes you to a nicely formatted overview of the data, provides some insights and allows for some analysis of the results.

If you're interested in more interactivity and analysis, you can access the underlying app here: https://sense-demo.qlik.com/sense/app/7f7aa30e-656a-44fe-b5fd-bf8e682976eb

If you have any feedback on things you'd like to see in the data, let me know.

James.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 7:27pm

Just Kaye, the most bankable actor. Good for her!!

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 8:12pm

great work!

Your use of "bankable" seems questionable. I haven't had time to dig into your stuff but how are you defining because the label doesn't really seem to jive with my sense of reality? (apologies if this is explained somewhere.)

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 8:25pm

Thanks for the feedback.

The 'bankable' metric is based on the total gross of shows that the actor was part of the cast in for opening night. In the case of Judy Kaye, it sums the grosses for Phantom, Mamma Mia, Ragtime, Nice Work if you can Get It and Souvenir. It would be nice to look at it week by week, with changing casts, but that information isn't available sadly.

If you click on actors in the most bankable section, it will select them, and show the associated data through the rest of the visualisation (this also applies for anywhere else you click, select a theatre to show all the shows from that theatre etc.)

Updated On: 6/9/17 at 08:25 PM

[JRH182]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:00pm

This is totally awesome. Great work!

For The Lion King - Top Grossing Shows of All Time -$1.36 T is that really 1.36 Trillion? That is crazy!

[chernjam]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:06pm

Most bankable composer - Andrew Lloyd Webber - 1.82 T - 

Wow...  and that's just broadway...

 

Fascinating

[hi127]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:10pm

Wow... This is incredible! Amazing work and thank you for sharing it with us!

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:11pm

It's $1.8 billion. Not sure why it's showing 'T', I'll look into that...

If you click on any of the values (when using a desktop browser), you'll see the information associated with what you've clicked on.

For example, if you click on 'Andrew Lloyd Webber', you'll then see all the shows that he wrote, along with the associated grosses, actors etc.

Updated On: 6/9/17 at 10:11 PM

[chernjam]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:34pm

that's really cool... will you be updating it?  I noticed that Sunset's revival's numbers are off for total grosses...

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 11:40pm

@JamesBelsey as I suspected, that metric does not measure "bankabilty" at all. It measures the long term fortunes of shows that a given person was in, not even limited to when they were in it. It in no way correlates to bankability, a term that of course makes sense in film, which is a static enterprise, but not here, in a constantly evolving enterprise. You are enhancing Ms. Kaye, as an example, every week for the revenue of a show she has not been in this century. That's a meaningless stat and to me it undercuts the enormous amount of good stats you've assembled. I could detail the obvious anomalies, but you are obviously smart enough to play this out. 

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 2:04am

It's a fair point and this metric isn't something that was front and centre in the original version of the analysis.

Perhaps a better metric would be to attribute revenues for the first year of a show's run to the original cast? I might have a look at that next week if I have time.

Yes @chernjam, the numbers in this version are a few weeks old. I'll see if I can get them updated, but if anyone's interested in a version that updates each week automatically, send me a PM and I'll see what I can arrange.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 9:58am

That would obviously be slightly better, but it still doesn't translate to bankable. There is no answer to any question other than "what star originated roles in shows that add up to the most aggregate revenue?" One example: someone who is basically unknown who serendipitously finds him or herself repeatedly in shows with big stars who are the "draw" and that subsequently, through great marketing and casting manages to run forever. This could be Kaye in Phantom or Buckley in Cats historically, or it could be Barton in Comet now, whose presence would never have kept the show open for a day without the combination of Groban and the spectacle. You might use "what stars would do best if they invested in every show in which they are in the original cast?"

I don't have a problem with the inclusion of this stat (truly fwiw) but by putting it front and center and labeling it as you do it made my first reaction to the site that it was BS, something that I found it not to be when I started to dig. (But as you no doubt know, on the internet especially, most people don't get beyond first impressions.) And it doesn't help that very few if any of the people listed as bankable would be deemed bankable by anyone who is engaged in actually using data to make real world decisions. Some of them, in fact, are preposterous, and as every scientist knows, when the data isn't telling you something believable, you go back to find out why. 

Once again, none of this carping takes away from your very fine overall work.

 

[Dave13]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 10:50am

I love the site and the effort put into it.  However, I do agree the Bankable actor metric is misleading and laughable.  Christopher Jackson as #3 is laughable.  Bankable to me equates to box office draw.  Certainly,   Christopher Jackson has been fortunate to have played supporting roles in several successful shows, but was he a box office draw? I don't think so.  While I love Christopher Jackson as an actor, I doubt I would buy a ticket to a show just because he was in it.  

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/12/17 at 8:47pm

Thanks for all the feedback on this.

The data should be updated sometime today to reflect the grosses up to today.

I've created a new metric to replace bankability that associates the grosses for the first year of a show to the actor. The results of this are below:

This seems to make more sense to have Nathan Lane be at the top, but I'm not sure about the others. Any thoughts on a good name for the metric? I agree that 'bankability' isn't right as there could be people that have just been lucky and been in the ensemble of a number of high grossing shows that are brought to the top here, but I can't think of anything better than 'First year grosses by actor' at the moment.

Thanks again for all the great feedback.

James.

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/13/17 at 8:04pm

This is now up to date with the current weeks grosses.

Looks like Hamilton will pass Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark next week to become the 18th highest grossing musical since 1984 (22nd when accounting for inflation)

[M.O.A.I.]

Posted: 6/13/17 at 9:11pm

If you really want to measure bankability, I'd suggest restricting yourself to above-the-title credits and restricting yourself tp the time they were in the show.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/13/17 at 9:26pm

M.O.A.I. said: "If you really want to measure bankability, I'd suggest restricting yourself to above-the-title credits and restricting yourself tp the time they were in the show."

I had a similar thought but decided I didn't want to micromanage any more than I had. Unfortunately above the title is a little restrictive but I don't know how you measure it otherwise in a data driven way. (What you really want is lead actor, not above the title, but who can do that data entry lol.)

The most interesting clues as to the problem with what's happening in the data in that chart are Thayne Jasperson and Charlie Sutton (and what a hot problem that is). You can make the list by spending limited time in a bunch of successful long running musicals, or a lot of time (is Thayne the last holdout in the OBC?) in one. 

Your lack of intransigence, James, is refreshing. 

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/13/17 at 10:01pm

Agreed, if there were a data source that showed the leads for each show for the last 30 years, that would be great.

I just had a thought about removing them from the analysis where their character is 'Ensemble', which would help, but for Charlie, that wouldn't really help as of his seven roles, only one is listed as 'Ensemble', the others are character descriptions, such as 'Angel', 'Addams Ancestor' or 'Telephone Repairman'



IBDB does list the cast in order, so I could use that, but it's then impossible to work out at which point to cut off. I could use the first 1, 2, 4 listed, first x% etc. but it's not an exact science. I might have a play with that though to see what comes out.

 

[Hellob]

Posted: 6/13/17 at 10:11pm

HogansHero said: "@JamesBelsey as I suspected, that metric does not measure "bankabilty" at all. It measures the long term fortunes of shows that a given person was in, not even limited to when they were in it. It in no way correlates to bankability, a term that of course makes sense in film, which is a static enterprise, but not here, in a constantly evolving enterprise. You are enhancing Ms. Kaye, as an example, every week for the revenue of a show she has not been in this century. That's a meaningless stat and to me it undercuts the enormous amount of good stats you've assembled. I could detail the obvious anomalies, but you are obviously smart enough to play this out. 

 

"

That's how Hollywood does the most bankable actors. It's usually some character actor like Hugo Weaving, actors who are in a bunch of huge films/franchises.  But it should only include the time she was there.

Updated On: 6/13/17 at 10:11 PM

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 1:37am

Thanks Hellob, the challenge here is that the cast of shows is not fixed, so, particularly in the case of long running shows like Phantom, I was attributing grosses to actors that have not been in the show to 20 years. I think doing it based on the first year of the show is probably reasonable. I'm currently working on adding a factor based on the actor's billing on the show, which should help get a better view of this, but will still not be perfect.

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/14/17 at 9:21pm

Ok, so I think I've come up with a metric that does a reasonable job of measuring the box office impact of individual actors now.

The metric is calculated using the first year of grosses for the show, then attributing them to the actors based on their billing from IBDB. If they're top or second billed, they get all of the grosses attributed to them, 3rd and 4th get half, 5th and 6th get a third etc. (i.e. First year grosses / Ceiling(Billing Number/2))  . This seems to get rid of a lot of the noise and come up with a reasonable list of actors and grosses as shown below.


The only major issue I've noted with this approach, is those shows that have alphabetical billing.

Thanks for all the input on this, especially @HogansHero. It's been fun investigating it further.

Updated On: 6/14/17 at 09:21 PM

[Hellob]

Posted: 6/27/17 at 1:11am

I was wondering where James Monroe Iglehart would rank? He's been in a million dollar show for 4 years and he's in a bigger blockbuster now. Wouldn't making 309 million or more with 2 shows technically make you more bankable than making 350 million over 10 shows?

Updated On: 6/27/17 at 01:11 AM

[JamesBelsey]

Posted: 6/27/17 at 1:25am

He's a fair way down this list as it doesn't take into account changes in cast, only grosses for the first year of a show for the original cast members.

Without having data for each show with actual cast members for every performance, it's impossible to get a completely accurate picture. Even then, it's still not an exact science.