Everything you know about storytelling is wrong.
Let me explain:
Hollywood is the biggest story “factory” in the world. The industry (in the US alone) spends ~74.8B a year on film production. Yes, B stands for billion. The average big-budget movie costs around 100M to make…and another 35M to advertise.
In 2024, the US and Canada alone released 569 movies, yet…
We are lucky to have 40-50 excellent films a year.
This means, despite the ungodly budget, we have a less than 10% success rate in telling good stories.
Why?
Because there is no “proven” formula to tell good stories.
Despite what everyone tells you –
The structure of the story (aka story arc) matters very little.
Hero’s Journey. Rags to Riches. Riches to Rags. Tragedy. Comedy. Romance. These are nothing more than reverse causation, tempting to explain why a movie broke the box office.
In reality –
People pay very little attention to the storyline.
Take the Titanic, for example:
A poor boy. Meet a rich girl. Fall in love for no reason. Painted a naked drawing. Had a one-night stand. Stole a diamond. Hit an iceberg. Sank. Died.
BOOM
2.2 billion worldwide.
But –
I guarantee you I can find at least 100 more movies with a similar plot that lost money at the box office.
So… why did Titanic go viral?
And more importantly, how can you adapt this to help your business go viral?
I’ll share the answer tomorrow.
To be continued…
– WYH