I think what surprised me most, was that – nobody had ever done a doctoral research study (ie – with a consilient research methodology, etc), specifically on the Top 20 RoI films, before this study was done in 2012.

ie – The only other prior academic studies, specifically on `Film Story, and How It Affects RoI’ are: 2 papers by the Wharton School of Marketing (2007 and 2010) – but, they are also problematic, for various reasons…
(ie – for details of those 2 x academic Wharton School studies, see: https://storyality.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/storyality-39-the-storyality-movie-story-study-methodology/)

Although – (the legendary) Professor DK Simonton looked at over 200 prior scientific studies of film success, in his research-survey/study/book `Great Flicks: Scientific Studies of Cinematic Creativity and Aesthetics’ (2011) – which is an amazing book, but, mainly looks at critical/awards success, rather than: film virality.

One thing DK notes there is that prior researchers all tend to use different research methods, (and also – look at different things in their studies) so, currently there’s not yet a `solid body of evidence’ that can be compared/correlated (on: film creativity, and film success).

– At any rate, a lot of new info now comes to light, in this study so at least, that’s something…
– Hopefully, other academic researchers can also build on it (both Simonton’s work and this study), and – at the end of the day, hopefully it’s helpful, to screenwriters and filmmakers everywhere… (ie – given the real-world problems that: `7 in 10 films lose money’ (Vogel 2011), and, that 98% of screenplays go unmade (Macdonald 2004), etc…)

It’s certainly a fascinating area…

Cheers,
JT