As a researcher, marketing strategist, audience advocate, and a creative force, Theater alum Kevin Goetz (BFA84) has analyzed audience reactions to movies ranging from Fatal Attraction, Titanic, Forrest Gump, and Mission Impossible to Despicable Me, Barbie, Wicked, and Sinners. The results: recommendations for changes to everything from addressing pacing issues to alleviating confusion and even shooting new endings.
Over several decades, Goetz has become a renowned film industry expert in using focus groups to best position movies for broad appeal and ultimately for financial success. As founder and CEO of Screen Engine, a global research and strategy firm, he oversees a worldwide team that partners with all the major film studios, television networks, streaming platforms, gaming publishers, and other lifestyle brands.
Best-selling author of Audience-ology, a 2021 book which explains the test-screening and audience reaction process in Hollywood, he recently published How to Score in Hollywood, a guide to making commercially successful movies before even a frame of film is shot.
“My thesis in the book is that every movie, if made and marketed for the right price, should make money,” says Goetz, who also hosts an immensely-popular filmmaking podcast, Don’t Kill the Messenger. “We try to mitigate that risk early on, sometimes even beginning at the twinkle in the eye of the idea.”
Throughout his career, he has tested more than 5,000 film titles, significantly impacting how movies are made, marketed, and released. At the 37th American Cinematheque Awards in February 2024, Goetz received the esteemed Power of Cinema Award for his vast contributions to the entertainment industry, along with Dame Helen Mirren, who also received an award for her lifetime achievements.
And Goetz credits Rutgers with truly legitimizing him as an artist who eventually also became an entrepreneur. “This was serious training,” Goetz says. “I can’t tell you just how much it transformed me, transformed my life.”
Excerpted from an article by Debbie Meyers. Read more about Goetz and his experience in the MGSA acting program, at Rutgers Today.