Research Into Audience Figures and Popular Thrillers

Most Popular Thriller Feature Films On IMDB
Chappie (2015)

Insurgent (2015)

Run All Night (2015)

The Imitation Game (2014)

Furious 7 (2015)

San Andreas (2015)

Gone Girl (2014)

Divergent (2014)

The Forger (2014)

Nightcrawler (2014)

Despite all having very different narratives, the trailers for these thrillers all contain a combination of fast-paced action and an emotional hook. For example, in the Chappie trailer the viewer is lead to become sympathetic for Chappie and this causes them to begin to feel an emotional attachment towards him. This would cause the viewer to want to find out what happens to the characters and therefore would cause them to go and see it. This is a technique which we should attempt to adopt when creating our own film opening as we know that it helps aid towards a successful thriller.

Top-US-Grossing Thriller Films According To IMDB
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) - $448M

Jurassic Park (1993) - $402M

Skyfall (2010) - $304M

The Sixth Sense (1999) - $294M

Inception (2010) - $293M

Gravity (2013) - $274M

Jaws (1975) - $260M

I Am Legend (2007) - $256M

Twister (1996) - $242M

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) - $239M

These films all did well in the box office because they had a big "hype" circling them and the majority contained big name actors. This would cause their existing fan bases to want to go and see the films, creating large profits for the companies. Further to this, all of the films shown contain high amounts of special effects which would cause the films to create a big reaction from audiences and therefore word of mouth would constitute towards more people going to see the films so they can experience these developing effects for themselves.
Unfortunately, we do not have the funding nor equipment required for big name actors or for lots of special, meaning that it will be difficult to create an engaging thriller. However, this simply means that we will have to pay more attention to the narrative of the film so as to produce something which audiences will still want to see.

By Olivia Calver