“…The well-researched driving factors of movie performance are mostly those that become available in the much later distribution/exhibition phase (Eliashberg et al, 2006;Hadida, 2009). Also, the role of the director is also surprisingly underresearched (Simonton, 2009). In this paper, we aim to fill these gaps and focus on the producers' problem of matching their new movie projects with directors that possess the right characteristics, and examine the financial implications that director choice may have on movie box office.…”