To a spectator of the newly released Star Wars movie, it's not hard to imagine that the film was going to be a success at the box office. For the Hollywood executive however, there is a much more scientific approach that has been adopted to predict the movie's likely success. 

The usage of big data to forecast the likeliness of an outcome is no new phenomenon. Understanding the factors that determine the success of a movie and what to look for when modeling the data, enables analysts to support strategic decision-making.