The Impact of an Actor's Status and Social Network Embeddedness on the Domestic Box Office in the Russian Movie Industry

Regarding the development of the movie industry all over the world in recent years, the question about the higher financial performance of projects has become one the most triggering for scholars to discover. Since a lot of investments and efforts are associated with the production process of a film, a sufficient number of factors have been scrutinized in terms of their potential impact on the monetary outcomes of the films. The majority of papers have been dedicated to the analysis of the American film industry. Additionally, some works have covered other geographies. However, the Russian movie industry has been neglected by scholars, providing an opportunity for the research to be conducted. The present study was intended to broaden the research geography and the list of features that could account for the higher financial performance of movies. In this respect, the empirical testing carried out in the context of the present study concerning the examination of the cast level features and their impact on the monetary performance of the Russian movies created in the period of 2015-2019. Overall, the results of the paper revealed the positive effect of some of the network measures attributable to the lead actors and actresses working on the 418 local movies.