How do movie makers get people to watch a movie many times?

How do movie makers get people to watch a movie many times? - Young woman relaxing at home and watching movie

I notice that some movies are so densely packed with nuanced layers that you have to watch them a few times before you really start to see everything. Some people watch some movies 10+ times.

But other movies get everything across in a single viewing so that it is boring to watch them more than once or twice.

I imagine that much of the difference is by design. What specific methods or tricks are used by movie makers to get the same viewers to keep watching the same movie over and over? Can you give examples of techniques and of movies that employ those techniques?



Best Answer

This is not an exhaustive list but it is a start. First off, remember that studios don't necessarily care if you watch their film again but they definitely want you to buy their film again... I'm looking at you, copy of Shindler's List just sitting on the shelf after 15 years, still in the original plastic.

OMG Special Features!!!@!

One of the most obvious ways of getting people to re-watch a film is to re-release it, usually with more "special features".

Is your film having a 10th... or 15th, or 25th... (you get my point) anniversary soon?

Put out a new copy of it with commentaries, behind the scenes footage, stills, deleted scenes, etc. You will get fans to buy the special version just for these updated, previously unreleased special stuff.

Release Different Versions:

And, along this vein... let's just release a new version of the film while we're at it... 3 hours of Lord of the Rings not enough for you? How about 3.5 hours??? Extended cuts are popular with fans and studios because the fans get more film and the studio gets a lot more money.

Or, how about implying that the director hated what the editors did to his film, so we need the director to release a special "Director's Cut" of the film.

Or, if you're George Lucas... you just release new versions every time you think that technology and plot have changed enough that you need to release a new version. Poor Star Wars. Shall we ever see you in your original glory again?

Show it in Theaters Again:

Are you having a sequel coming out soon?... perhaps after 20 years? How about getting theaters to screen double features so that people can remember what they forgot 20 years ago right before seeing the new one.

"Vault" Your Films:

This one is really just Disney Animation but they seem to think it works. Disney has been creating artificial scarcity of their films by limiting their DVD/BluRay releases and "vaulting" titles for periods of several years. When the film "comes out of the vault", have a big release event and everyone will buy the copies.




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Why do some people watch the same movie multiple times?

The Simple Reason Watching something again and again seems like it would make entertainment lose its initial appeal. But psychologists have found that repetition breeds affection. Familiar fare requires less mental energy to process, and when something is easy to think about, we tend to consider it good.

How do I get people to watch my movie?

tl;dr: All movies in history have a collective runtime of 38.7452 years. With a few tweaks, this can be watched in 12.915 years, and a person with a healthy schedule could finish it in 38.745 years.

How long would it take to watch every movie created?

Writing a film review often requires multiple viewings of the film. Plan to watch the film two or even three times. During the first viewing, surrender yourself to the cinematic experience; in other words, get lost in the narrative and enjoy the film without worrying about the argument you will eventually cultivate.



How are movies made? | The movie making process explained | How to make a movie




More answers regarding how do movie makers get people to watch a movie many times?

Answer 2

Well, the most simplest is the core of all entertainment. Entertainment is about evoking emotions in the consumer. It can be pride for solving a puzzle or something else, but usually the emotional situation is simply presented and you watch (or read in books) about it.

So if you watch 'Hotaru no haka' (Grave of the fireflies) you probably will feel always sadness. So you probably will come back to watch it again, if you want to explore your emotions.

If the movie sets on surprises, this can work very well for the first viewing, but will not have the effect later on. And movies that simply fail, will probably not viewed again.

Answer 3

I think a good example is where there is an unexpected twist (or twists) at the end, particularly if they depended on several elements earlier in the movie which were in plain sight so to speak but not obvious in terms of story development.

For example, who could watch The Sixth Sense without going back and watching it again just to see how you could have missed all the clues?

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