Motion picture profit, the stable Paretian hypothesis, and the curse of the superstar

Abstract This paper investigates the stable distribution as a model of profit in motion pictures. The skew of this distribution and its Paretian tails capture with great fidelity the statistics of the movies. Features of the business such as the “nobody knows principle,” the “curse of the superstar,” the “angel's nightmare,” the instability of profit, and the form of artist contracts follow from the properties of the stable distribution.

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