In Movie Sequel Titles, Names Are Best
By ALEX MINDLIN
Movie audiences prefer sequels with names to those with numbered titles, according to a paper in the October Journal of Consumer Research. In one study, subjects were shown a made-up movie title —“Daredevil 2” or “Daredevil: Taking It to the Streets” — and asked to read a plot summary. Those who saw the second title spent more time reading the summary, remembered more, and rated the hypothetical movie more highly.
Another study found that audiences demanded more divergent plots from numbered sequels, perhaps because numbers signaled that a later movie might be a clone of its predecessor. “People are looking for some kind of cue that the movie is dissimilar, and you can do that either through the title or through the plot” said Sanjay Sood, one of the study’s authors and an assistant marketing professor at U.C.L.A.’s Anderson School of Management.
Mr. Sood’s co-author, Xavier Drèze, an assistant marketing professor at the Wharton School of Business, noted that there were “few successful long-running series that use numbering.”
Mr. Sood added: “If James Bond was ‘James Bond 22,’ or whatever number they’re at, people would probably be a lot less interested.”
ALEX MINDLIN
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