a. A brief description of the article and its
conclusions.
b. Your overall thoughts about the content of the article
and how interesting you found it.
c. How the article relates to what we are currently
learning in AP Stats.
d. What new things did you find in the article that we have
NOT talked about yet in AP Stats.
3. In the article, the writer uses his linear model
(equation) to make predictions about the gross earning for movies, choose a 2011
movie that he does not use in the article and comment on how well his model
predicted its gross earnings. Then choose a movie that will be released in the
next 3 months and use his model to predict its gross
earnings.
4. Most everything should be typed in paragraph form.
Include at least one picture in your blog entry. Graphical displays or
infographics would be nice as well.
2A. The article, Cinemath: Good Movies Do Better at the Box Office; Also Helps to Be Expensive, PG-13, and a Sequel, by Brendan Bettinger, asks the question of “Do moviegoers care if a movie is good?” The answer to this question is yes. Using data from 2011 Bettinger found that on average as the rating of a movie goes up so does the domestic box office gross. Using the categories of rotten tomatoes review, whether is was PG-13, its budget, number of theaters it was released to, and the if it was a sequel. Using these variables Bettinger found the approximate equation, Gross = –80 + 0.6×RT + 0.5×Budget + 0.025×Theaters + 50×Sequel + 20×PG13, to find how much a movie will make at the box office. Overall the equation works well with a positive correlation of 0.65. This shows that movie goers do care if a movie is good.
2B. I didn't find the article to be very interesting. While he did put many variables into finding the the gross, he forgot the most important variable, individuals. Different critics and different people enjoy different movies. While critics continue to rave about The Artist or Black Swan I fell asleep in both these movies. If a movie has a big name it will most likely be a huge success (any superhero movie).
2C. The article related mostly to chapter seven and eight. It used a scatterplot to find the line of best fit and the correlation between the two variables of Rotten Tomatoes review and domestic box office gross. It also greatly referred to the residuals squared value in order to determine how well the equation fit the data.
2D. Things I found in the article that we have not gone over in class is how to create an equation for a set of data that is useful, using multiple variable. It also talked about component residual graphs which we have not discussed. 
3. 2011 Movie-- Rise of the Planet of the Apes
RT--83%
Sequel--Yes, well Prequel but hopefully that counts
Budget--$93 Million
Theaters--3648
PG-13--Yes
Gross--$176 Million
Gross = –80 + 0.6×83 + 0.5×93 + 0.025×3648 + 50×1 + 20×1=177.5
The equation does a GREAT job at predicting the domestic box office gross. The equation estimated 177.5 Million, and the actual value was 176 Million. The percent error is 0.85%!
3. 2012 Movie-- The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey
RT--95%
Sequel--Yes
Budget--$270 Million
Theaters--4000
PG-13--Yes
Gross--Unknown
Gross = –80 + 0.6×95 + 0.5×270 + 0.025×4000 + 50×1 + 20×1=223 Million
3. 2012 Movie-- The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey
RT--95%
Sequel--Yes
Budget--$270 Million
Theaters--4000
PG-13--Yes
Gross--Unknown
Gross = –80 + 0.6×95 + 0.5×270 + 0.025×4000 + 50×1 + 20×1=223 Million
