Great Wall Movie Flops
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A story about how a data-driven movie studio's attempt to make a cross-cultural blockbuster failed, despite their analytics suggesting it would work.
"One of the films that flopped was this thing called The Great Wall. They did the joint venture with the Chinese company and they're like 'Let's make an American movie but it's about the Great Wall.' The concept was imagine if the Great Wall was actually built to keep aliens out. Matt Damon's in it.
The movie flops - China didn't love it, America didn't love it. It was trying to make something for everybody but ended up being something for nobody.
The analytics guy is still going to die on this hill though. He's like 'I don't know man, the data showed that Matt Damon was under-indexed in China. The price for Matt Damon versus the cachet Matt Damon has with that audience was a good trade.' People point out the movie flopped and he's like 'Alright, but that one part was right.'"
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.