First computer film critic

British company Epagogix has developed an artificial intelligence computer program that can predict the box-office returns of movies. First, human readers score a prospective script, assigning numerical values to hundreds of variables describing its content. The software then compares these numbers to those of previously released movies – together with their well-known box-office receipts – and this yields a forecast of what a full production of the new script is likely to make. The company claims its software can estimate a movie’s box office takings to within +/- $10m. And it seems to work scarily well. In a test, Epagogix predicted that the 2007 movie Lucky You would flop badly – failing to recoup the $50m spent making it. As it turned out, the film brought in just $5.7m.