Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

The entertainment industry has long been dominated by legendary screenwriter William Goldman’s “Nobody-Knows-Anything” mantra, which argues that success is the result of managerial intuition and instinct. This book builds the case that combining such intuition with data analytics and rigorous scholarly knowledge provides a source of sustainable competitive advantage – the same recipe for success that is behind the rise of firms such as Netflix and Spotify, but has also fueled Disney’s recent success. Unlocking a large repertoire of scientific studies by business scholars and entertainment economists, the authors identify essential factors, mechanisms, and methods that help a new entertainment product succeed. The book thus offers a timely alternative to “Nobody-Knows” decision-making in the digital era: while coupling a good idea with smart data analytics and entertainment theory cannot guarantee a hit, it systematically and substantially increases the probability of success in the entertainment industry. Entertainment Science is poised to inspire fresh new thinking among managers, students of entertainment, and scholars alike.