Okay. You got the money. But you want your script to be the best possible — so that it connects with your audience. Wait, who are they again, and what do they want to watch? A crystal ball would come in handy right now.

That’s the promise from Jack Zhang and his company Greenlight Essentials.

Jack has combined his two loves, math and movies, to bring big data to indie filmmakers. He’s been collecting data for the last seven years and the insights are amazing. Jack can tell you how your plot stacks up, who your audience is and where they live.

With this information, you can improve your script and spend your marketing budget with confidence.

After ingesting your script and comparing over 40,000 plot elements with over 3,700 films and millions of box office records, Jack’s AI will plot the likely performance of your film. Change an element here and there, and see what happens.

Next, he’ll give you the demographics of the audience that responds best to your movie: their ages, occupations, incomes, purchase patterns and social media profiles.

Jack can also tell you where your audience lives in the US and Canada.

I recently asked Jack if creatives get upset when his algorithm undervalues their ideas.

“We are just funnelling audiences’ tastes to creatives.  It does upset people sometimes for sure, but it is just showing creatives that audiences want something else, and showing them the ways they can better shape their content to fit the audiences’ tastes.”

My take: this really is a crystal ball. If you ever felt that coverage is inherently skimpy and too much is left to gut decisions, this is worth checking out. Imagine only spending your ad dollars in the cities and on the social media platforms where your audience hangs out. Savings galore!