Variance does matter in affecting the box office: a multi-aspect investigation

Although numerous studies have been conducted to validate the influences of reviews and ratings on the box office, there are still some important unsettled concerns. On one hand, the evaluation of reviews should take into account different aspects of the product. On the other hand, certain movies often cause fierce debates in word-of-mouth marketing, implying that involving variance will provide a deeper perspective on sales, and there is scant research on variance compared to the volume and valence of reviews. In this study, we mainly consider two aspects in the reviews: cast and plot. The cast mainly refers to the actors and directors, which means the buyer already has an inherent bias and subjective impressions, while the plot refers to the content and storyline of the movie itself, which have lower perception and experience before consumption. We further study the influence of the variance of these two aspects on the box office as well as their changing trends. In addition, we also discuss the moderating effect of these two variances on the review valence and sales. We find that (1) the variance of both attributes has a positive impact on the box office; (2) The impact of cast on the box office gradually decreases over time, while that of plot exhibits an opposite trend; (3) The final box office is affected by the valence and variance of the cast attribute, and the variance has a negative moderating effect between the valence and sales over time.