Sleeper hit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A sleeper hit (often simply called a "sleeper") refers to a film, book, album, TV show, or video game that gains unexpected success or recognition. The term is most commonly used in reference to feature films.
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[edit] Sleeper films
Some sleeper hits achieve unexpected success at the box office immediately upon their initial theatrical release, but this is not typical. Since these films are not expected to do particularly well they are often underpromoted and take time to register in the public consciousness. Typically the sleeper hit relies instead on positive word of mouth and publicity generated by good reviews or awards. Thus sleeper films often attract the most viewers in the latter part of their theatrical releases. For example, There's Something About Mary had a small release, but gained notoriety through word of mouth, and grew to top the weekend box office on its 8th week of release. Studios have become more adept at responding to sleeper success at the box office by gradually increasing the number of screens and amount of advertising devoted to a promising film over several weeks (as opposed to a traditional pre-release advertising blitz). This strategy was used to great success by the promoters of Little Miss Sunshine and Brokeback Mountain[citation needed]. Some sleeper hits fail completely at the box office but succeed later on video as cult films through positive word of mouth reviews communicated between fans in particular social networks or demographics.
A sleeper hit does not necessarily have to make a lot of revenue; it just needs to achieve a high degree of success relative to expectations. However, the term is generally not used to refer to large budget movies, even those that defy their expectations, such as 1997's Titanic. The term is fairly subjective, so many movies are informally referred to as sleepers. Sometimes even an unreleased movie is advertised as a sleeper.
[edit] Examples
- 28 Days Later
- American Pie
- Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
- Babe
- Barbershop
- A Better Tomorrow
- The Big Lebowski
- The Blair Witch Project
- Boyz N the Hood
- A Christmas Story
- Clerks.
- Clueless
- Crocodile Dundee
- The Crying Game
- Donnie Darko
- Dr. No
- El Mariachi
- Forever Young
- Grease
- Home Alone
- Little Miss Sunshine
- March Of The Penguins
- Memento
- Monster's Ball
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding
- My Cousin Vinny
- Napoleon Dynamite
- The Notebook
- Office Space
- Porky's
- Pulp Fiction
- Rocky
- Saw
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Sling Blade
- Stand by Me
- There's Something About Mary
[edit] Books
In publishing, success is usually measured by reaching the bestseller lists. Sleeper books are usually released by an unknown (often first-time) author, are not widely publicized on release, and may not sell well at first. However, sleeper books gain recognition by word-of-mouth and this leads to sales increases. They can be promoted by independent booksellers, book clubs, or literary awards.
A good example is Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. This book, written by a first-time novelist, was released with a modest print run of 25,000. It received good reviews and was initially promoted by small booksellers and word-of-mouth. The book won the 1997 National Book Award, spent 45 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold over a million copies in hardback alone, and was adapted for film in 2003.
An increase in sales may push the book onto the bestseller list long after its release date. For example, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood reached the bestseller lists two years after it was initially released. This contrasts with the usual pattern of bestsellers by recognized authors, where sales are high upon release but fall off sharply after a short time.
The original Harry Potter books began as sleeper hits, only reaching high profile with the third in the series.
[edit] Examples
- The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
- The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
- Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
- The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
[edit] Other media
Unexpectedly successful video games such as RollerCoaster Tycoon, Katamari Damacy, SimCity, Mashed, Faery Tale Adventure and Half-Life can also be described as sleeper hits.
Another type of sleeper hit is an album that is released by an unknown artist with little publicity, but proceeds to gain large sales. For example, Alanis Morissette's first international album Jagged Little Pill entered the Billboard Music Charts at position 117 and reached the top 10 in its 6th week. However, it spent 69 consecutive weeks in the top 10 and has sold 30 million copies worldwide.
Joss Whedon's Firefly, a television show aired in 2002 by Fox Broadcasting Company, received very little coverage at the time of its broadcast and was cancelled after only 11 episodes. However, subsequent to its cancellation, the DVD box set sold in massive numbers and remains one of the most purchased items on Amazon.com. This led to the filming and release of Serenity, a movie concluding the series, which achieved critical acclaim and modest box-office success.
The NBC sitcom Seinfeld premiered in 1989 with poor success. It originally didn't make it into NBC's schedule and was about to be cancelled (because of lack of sucess and the content of the show) but 5 more episodes for the first season were given to complete the NBC schedule. NBC would give Seinfeld three seasons from 1990-1992 although acclaimed, didn't even make the top 30 shows. However, with positive reviews, word of mouth, and Emmy wins, Seinfeld became apart of the top 30 in it's fourth season, and eventually was the #1 show. Although it had hardly any success initially, today, ten years after the finale, Seinfeld remains one of the most syndicated programs and one of the biggest DVD hits.
[edit] See also
- Sleeper for other uses of the word
