Dreaming of artistic excellence, popularity, or both?

Artists in any field must face a similar dilemma: Should they pursue their own ideals of artistic integrity as a pure creative expression of their most profound thoughts and feelings, or should they instead try to please their targeted markets in order to gain popular acceptance and achieve commercial success? Any answer to this question produces long-lasting effects – not only for the artists themselves, but also for audience members who might benefit in knowledge and experience from appreciating the most inspired pieces of art. Potentially, such a difficult choice might be resolved by achieving popularity through the attainment of high quality in the works of art, but the efficacy of such a rapprochement must not be taken for granted. Due to the high availability of data on the motion picture industry, this paper addresses this dilemma in the context of cinematic consumption. To understand whether excellence and popularity diverge, converge, or proceed on independent paths, we review previous research suggesting that, from different perspectives favoring alternative modes of analysis, past studies interpret similar data sets differently. Whether excellence and popularity are independent or correlated has a strong impact on many aspects of the movie industry such as the job of experts, the role of Academy Awards, and the importance of various cinematic product features. Hence, this problematic issue raises relevant questions for artists, consumers, and researchers with an interest in arts marketing.