Hollywood and industry analysts, the people who track studio performance, measure success primarily with box office. With the theaters closed for most of 2020, several people have asked us how to measure performance. We’ll show you our answer, but first, let’s look at the problem of relying on box office alone.

According to Box Office Mojo, these are the top-grossing titles in the US:

1
2
3
4
5

Bad body for Life
Sonic the Hedgehog
Birds of  Prey
Dolittle
The Invisible Man

$206
$149
$ 84
$ 77
$ 70

Jan. 17
Feb. 14
Feb. 7
Jan. 17
Feb. 28

While all of these films deserve recognition, it’s hard to imagine they would’ve been the top-grossing films if the theaters had stayed open all year. In fact, the one thing these five movies do have in common is they were released in January or February before the theaters closed.

Nanocrowd analyzes audience reactions to help studios find the largest audience for their films and TV shows. We often use box office to analyze a titles' success, but it isn’t a very useful measurement for 2020.

Even before the theaters closed last year, box office wasn’t the best metric for ranking the full range of viewers’ entertainment choices available today. It didn’t allow us to compare theatrically-released movies to streaming movies, and it certainly didn’t compare movies to television or streaming series. That’s why we developed our Passion Index for movies and series.

In addition to analyzing box office, we developed a Passion Index™ based on the volume and sentiment of viewer comments. We use the viewers' words in their online comments as input to calculate which titles get the most attention and whether the viewers’ words are positive or negative. By combining these two calculations, we compare how passionate viewers are about titles.

According to our Passion Index, these are the top 50 US titles released in 2020 (a score of 100 is the highest any title can receive, and the other titles are indexed to that top title).

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Wonder Woman 1984
Tenet
Birds of Prey
Mulan
Extraction
The Invisible Man
Star Trek: Picard
The Queen’s Gambit
The Haunting of Bly Manor
The Gentlemen

100.0
97.8
48.9
48.8
40.15
40.11
40.08
34.9
33.6
26.2

Dec 25
Sep 3
Feb 7
Sep 4
Apr 24
Feb 28
Jan 23
Oct 23
Oct 9
Jan 24

11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Sonic the Hedgehog
Uncle Tom
The Old Guard
Bad Boys for Life
Away
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Onward
Cursed
Ba 5 Bloods

25.1
22.9
22.6
22.1
21.3
20.2
20.0
19.1
18.3
17.8

Feb 14
Jun 19
Jul 20
Jan 17
Sep 4
Jun 26
Aug 8
Mar 6
Jul 17
June 12

21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm
Underwater
Bill & Ted Face the Music
The Devil All the Time
The Hunt
Messiah
Lovecraft Country
Greyhound
Space Force
Raised by Wolves

17.55
17.51
17.5
17.2
15.7
15.61
15.58
15.3
14.7
14.3

Oct 23
Jn 10
Aug 28
Sep  16
Mar 13
Jan 1
Aug 16
Jul 10
May 29
Sep 3

31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40

Mank
Hunters
Hamilton
The Trial of the Chicago 7
The New Mutants
Hillbilly Elegy
Bloodshot
Artemis Fowl
The Outsider
Just Mercy

13.9
13.63
13.56
13.5
12.7
12.2
11.8
11.7
11.6
11.5

Dec 4
Feb 21
Jul 3
Sep 25
Aug 28
Nov 24
Mar 13
Jun 12
Jan 12
Jan 10

41
22
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50

Color Out of Space
Little Fires Everywhere
Dolittle
Devs
The Vast of Night
Scoob!
Project Power
Locke & Key
Hollywood
Unhinged

11.4
11.3 1
1.188
11.186
11.1
10.8
10.59
10.55
10.3
10.2

Jan 24
Mar 18
Jan 17
Mar 5
May 15
May 15
Aug 14
Feb 7
May 1
Aug 21

The Passion Index is an integrated metric that can be used alongside box office. It provides a side-by-side comparison of movies and series as well as streaming and theatrical release titles. Now that word of mouth and online mentions are so critical to the success of any entertainment product, the Passion Index provides a method to measure the viewers’ voice. Analysts can use it to rank titles and get a quick look at which titles are trending with viewers and make informed strategic decisions.

And, even though Bad Boys for Life and Sonic the Hedgehog had to give up their #1 and #2 spots, they both made it into the Passion Index top 15. Congrats!