Abstract

Music, as one of the essential elements in the filmmaking process, plays an important role in the success of a movie. Although prior studies have investigated several factors which influence movie revenue, there’s a lack of research examining the effect of search volume of movie soundtrack on the movie revenue. Therefore, we proposed the following research questions: (1) Is search volume of a movie soundtrack a predictor of the movie revenue in the opening week and the following weeks? (2) Does the effect of search volume of movie soundtrack on movie revenue differ between existing songs and new songs in different time periods? We investigated the effect of movie soundtrack search volume on the movie revenue in different time periods. Moreover, we also examined the moderating effect of existing songs vs. new songs on the relationship between search volume and movie revenue. Initial data collected from Google Trends and IMDb was used for the preliminary test of the research model. The initial results showed that online search volume of movie soundtrack has an effect on the movie revenue, and this effect in the pre-launch period is strengthened if existing songs are used in the movie soundtrack.

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