Without Flops, There Would Be No Hits

In the Boston Globe, Nathan Rabin has an essay "The case for total failure" arguing for the importance of movie flops.  He writes that flops have destoyed careers and bankrupted studios but when flops don't have such extreme effects, they can be valuable.  Flops can provoke a film artist to rethink his or her strategy towards creation.  A flop can introduce new technology for other filmmakers to perfect.

Rabin doesn't invoke my personal salve for when I see a terrible theater production: without flops there wouldn't be hits.  I'm a statistical elitist.  Believing that all human endeavor when measured and graphed would produce a bell curve, with most people in the middle and only a few folks at the worst and best ends of the curve, helps me accept that failures are not necessarily weaknesses for those involved.  No one plans to produce a flop--except in the plot of The Producers.  Everyone wants a hit and works for one.


In our book, Stage Money, we note that Babe Ruth, who had an extraordinary batting average, still got an out almost two-thirds of his times at bat.

As much as producers, playwrights, directors, designers, and actors learn through their careers,--whether hits, flops, or middling successes--each new show is a new business selling a new product.  And new businesses are highly risky.  For elaboration on this comparison, see Chapter Three, "Risk and Return in the Commercial Theater," in our book Stage Money.