Media Page
 August 2007: "Super Crunchers...are delivering staggeringly accurate results"
Super Crunchers - Why Thinking-By-Numbers Is The New Way To Be Smart. Yale law professor and noted econometrician and commentator, Ian Ayres' new book has been embraced by the "best and brightest" business thinkers. With a fast-moving and compelling style, Ayres shows the value of evidence-based decision-making in various arenas. In the world of movies, Ayres identifies and highlights the value that Epagogix adds to film-makers, film financiers -- and film audiences.
 (English)
Super Crunchers is published by Bantam Books, a Division of Random House Inc. ISBN 978-0-553-80540-6
16th Oct 2006: What if you built a machine to predict hit movies?
Writing in the New Yorker magazine, Malcolm Gladwell, the noted author of ‘Blink’ and ‘Tipping Point’ reflects on thought-provoking meetings with Epagogix's Dick Copaken, and takes an in-depth look at why different people like different kinds of film, examining Hollywood's approach to balancing subjective creative vision with objective audience tastes and investor requirements. He examines the historic context and application of rules and systems, neural networks, and talks to Epagogix’s staff about their innovative methods, modelled against a specific sample movie.
(English)
8th Oct 2006: "This is an incredibly valuable tool"
Noted American writer Malcolm Gladwell at the podium at the annual New Yorker Magazine Festival. Gladwell talks astutely and entertainingly about how a far-sighted major Hollywood studio chief introduced him to Dick Copaken, a noted Washington DC lawyer who loves film and who became actively involved with the launch of Epagogix - a UK company, based on an innovative British idea. Epagogix has a contract with this studio, which recognises the creative and commercial value of Epagogix's output. Gladwell illustrates Epagogix's approach very well, within the constraints of the company's strict confidentiality agreements and IP protection requirements, although in some places, by necessity, he must speculate about or condense details of Epagogix's genesis and process. Please note that contrary to a statement later in the film, Epagogix does not only focus on major studios, but also reviews scripts for independents.
(English)
 4th Jan 2008: The Appliance of Science - a UK-centric look at Epagogix
Screen International's Rachel Nouchi looks at Epagogix from a sceptical British production perspective - while noting that the bulk of this UK company's business and reputation is focused on North America.
(English)
Nov 2007: The Mathematics of Hollywood
Thomas Bunnell, editor of luxury lifestyle magazine, Boom, takes an initially sceptical look at Epagogix's approach to helping Hollywood identify the scripts where it should spend its valuable capital and talent, and comes away willing to be convinced.
(English)
31st Oct 2007: Motley Fool applauds Super Crunching business approach
Jack Uldrich strongly recommends Ian Ayres' Super Crunchers in the much-cited Motley Fool investor-advisor website, stating that Epagogix and others are part of the "rapidly maturing field of data mining [that] is transforming the commercial marketplace." Uldrich opines that Epagogix's fact-driven findings approach has the potential to "revolutionize Hollywood".
(English)
28th Aug 2007: Risky Business Part II - this time it's critical financial risk
Sorry - nothing to do with Tom Cruise's famous debut - BBC Radio 5 Live's Phil Williams talks to Epagogix's Nick Meaney and to Variety executive editor Steven Gaydos, who believes that the "single biggest fear in Hollywood is risk", with huge amounts of money being 'bet' on individual projects -- which goes some way to explaining the industry's openness towards Epagogix's abilities.
(English - MP3 sound file 8.29 MB)
27th Aug 2007: Who you gonna call?...Flopbusters!
In The Sun newspaper, Virginia Wheeler succinctly states Epagogix's value to investors and studios who want to avoid the expensive mistakes of developing films that cost more to make than they earn.
(English)
  25th Aug 2007: La science du "blockbuster". Transposing risk principles to cinema
Marc Allard, of Montreal's Le Soleil talks to Nick Meaney and examines the risk environment in Hollywood, and how Epagogix applies the intense objectivity of its process and neural network to address and lessen those risks.
(French)
24th August 2007: One of the more unusual and innovative ways computer number-crunching has been put to use comes out of Hollywood
...says CEO Read reviewer Jack Covert in his review of Professor Ayres' Super Crunchers (see below). Covert highlights the opportunities noted by a hedge fund manager that "Hollywood is a ten-lane paved highway of opportunity" for those able to deploy enhanced decision-making over a "committment to do things the wrong way."
(English)
14th August 2007: Freakonomics - Attack of the Super Crunchers
The New York Times' Melissa Lafsky reviews Professor Ian Ayres' acclaimed new book Super Crunchers, in which Epagogix is heavily featured as one of those companies that is ahead of the curve in using data to enhance or displace intuition..
(English)
13th Jul 2007: How to make a Blockbuster...Nobody knows everything - the computers are there for what the people don't know
Epagogix's complex computer programmes are fed by expert industry data, and enhanced by objective outsider analysis of 'insider' Hollywood knowledge. Phil Hoad, The Guardian's film expert explains the challenges Hollywood faces in creating summer blockbusters, and how Epagogix helps to pick and finesse winning scripts.
(English)
24th May 2007: Data and technology driving new approaches to the film and music industries
Peter Day, the BBC's respected business innovation broadcaster interviews Epagogix's Nick Meaney for BBC Radio 4's In Business programme. Day examines how technology can and is influencing the key decisions that help to protect investments. He wonders what - if any - difference this makes to creative output.
(English - MP3 sound file 11.4 MB)
 20th Feb 2007: Is there a formula to predict Oscar Winners?
Deutsche Welle Radio's Matthew Lawton asks Epagogix's Nick Meaney this timely question, and investigates other aspects of the 'artistic' versus the 'commercial' imperatives of film-making.
(English - MP3 sound file 3.43 MB)
Deutsche Welle homepage:
9th Feb 2007: Q&A with Nick Meaney, Epagogix’s CEO
Timed to coincide with the opening of the Berlin Film Festival, the German Financial Times speaks to Epagogix’s Nick Meaney about movies and methodologies, rather than the business angle you might expect.
(German - PDF document, Epagogix article on page 2)
Jan 28th 2007: Where commerce meets creativity
Peter Körte, the well-respected cultural editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeiting takes an in-depth look at Hollywood and interviews Nick Meaney and Sean Verity, members of Epagogix's team about the potential impact of their services,.
(German)
 24th Dec 2006: Die 200-Millonen-Dollar-Formel
Malcolm Gladwell’s groundbreaking analysis of the impact and implications of Epagogix’s approach translated into the German language by Switzerland’s Neue Zurcher Zeitung, NZZ online.
(German)
19th Nov 2006: How Hollywood's power elite lost the plot
Mark Hooper, of The Independent believes that the business of movie-making is undergoing a major shift, and sees that Epagogix is ‘setting Hollywood a-buzz’.
(English)
 16th Nov 2006: Per il botto al botteghino c'è un software malandrino
Marco de Martino provides a summary overview of Epagogix’s methodology for the news website Panorama.it. Please note that the article incorrectly identifies the origins of Epagogix’s services and wrongly attributes the initial development of Epagogix’s methodology to the USA, rather than the UK.
(Italian)
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