Press Pull Quotes
About IMDb’s Traffic, Reach and Industry Importance:
IMDb gets over 250 million unique visitors a month and claims the title as the "#1 Movie Website in the World." It could also claim the title of the industry's true "LinkedIn," the go-to source for those making decisions about other peoples' careers and journalists wanting to know what year O'Shea Jackson Jr. was born. – The WrapThe Internet Movie Database, the now-ubiquitous website that tracks pretty much every speck of info about movies and TV, will celebrate its 25th birthday on Saturday. That means that the website is older than the web. By 1998, TIME dubbed the "astonishing" site "the most awesome movie database you'll ever peruse." — Time Magazine
I didn't really know anything about it [IMDb] until one day several years ago on a flight to Telluride Roger Ebert mentioned it and said it was a "must." Since then I probably go to that site or its apps at least 10 times a day. For this I thank Needham, an affable guy who, growing up in the UK, got into home computers when he was 12 years old in 1979 and instantly combined his aptitude for that with his love for movies . . . we share a love of movies and what Needham (who has been labeled by The Guardian as "the most powerful Brit in Hollywood"), with the help of Amazon, has done with this simple idea is rather mind-boggling. It's a feast for movie lovers, and a necessity for those of us in this business. At a certain point they also added TV shows just in case the staff didn't have enough to do. – Deadline
The world's largest online database for movie buffs just turned 25. In that time IMDb has gone from being one man's chronicling of movies into practically a reflex action for the internet world when it comes to choosing what to watch. Today, IMDb attracts over 200,000,000 users a month. If the site's monthly users were to form a country, it would be the world's 6th largest, comfortably eclipsing Pakistan and running Brazil (the actual number 5) close. And it would have a sizable number of Indians, with India being the largest source of traffic after the US. But that's beside the point. The point is that IMDb is now insanely huge. From an obscure series of scripts on USENET, the site is now one of the world's top 50 visited sites according to Alexa rankings. At number 48, it is the only entertainment-based website in the top 50 list, the bulk of which is made up of search engines. That's no surprise when you really think about it - when it comes to entertainment, IMDb is the search engine, an entity that literally gets bigger with each passing moment. Not content with just becoming the world's most popular repository of movies, it went on to cover TV and has about 3,500,000 titles in its database. This includes productions all the way back from 1875 to 2025. That's 2025. 10 years ahead of today. It's not just about movies and shows either. It's this sort of comprehensiveness that has turned IMDb's founder Needham into one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. It may be among the oldest websites out there, but clearly IMDb intends to remain as inventive as the freshest kid on the block. And thanks to a booming television and indie filmmaking scene and the internet growing faster than we can keep up, this 25 year old has yet to hit its prime. – Catchnews.com
Perhaps LA Weekly's Nikki Finke summed it up best when she wrote about IMDb in 2004. "It's rarely wrong, always up to date and sometimes even ahead of the curve. We need it, we love and we applaud it. Heck, if it were a drug, we'd be hopelessly addicted to it." – Stuff Magazine
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, IMDb—the largest movie Web site in the world and the go-to source for every imaginable movie fact—is looking back at its famous user rankings. They've exclusively shared with us this list, of the top-ranked film every year since the site was founded, in 1990. IMDb celebrates its official 25th anniversary on October 17. – Vanity Fair
On the information superhighway, IMDb has been the exit to entertainment for a quarter-century. – Evening Magazine (regional NBC affiliate TV show)
It's hard to believe but today, October 17, marks the exact day 25 years ago that IMDb made its debut in the world and changed everything for those who live, breathe and write about film and awards like I do . . . It has been going strong ever since, a must-stop on the net for anyone looking for info, reviews (both professional and user written), awards data, technical aspects, cast and crew lists, ages, who's alive, who's not and so much else I could list its features for days. – Deadline
"What was going on in the Internet in 1990?" founder and CEO Col Needham asks the crowd at West Hollywood bash. "Straight Outta Compton" star O'Shea Jackson Jr. wasn't even born when IMDb debuted in 1990, but he helped light up the room at the website's 25th anniversary party at the Sunset Tower in West Hollywood on Thursday night. Needham hosted the birthday bash with "friends" from Amazon Studios, the original content wing of the company that bought IMDb back in 1998. On Thursday night, guests surrounded Amazon Studios head Roy Price (he of 12 Emmy nominations) but ceded the floor to Needham, who was online so early that his email address was numbers. The supporters who have stuck with IMDb over decades of digital developments include on-camera talent (Dana Delaney, Mira Sorvino, Peter Fonda, Ethan Embry, and Tommy Davidson), producers (Dana Brunetti, Ron Yerxa, and reality franchise master Conrad Riggs), filmmakers (James Schamus and Michael Sucsy), industry media captains (The Wrap Founder and CEO Sharon Waxman and Anne Thompson), festival programmers, and a slew of Amazon Studios executives.– The Wrap
"What started with a few pieces of paper in his childhood bedroom at Col Needham's parents' Manchester home has become a website – indeed, one of the most popular in the world – with more than 200 million users every month, an app that has been downloaded by more than 100 million people and a paid-for service that charges film-makers and actors to cast and be cast." – The Independent
"The name is so famous it’s practically a verb. What is Jennifer Lawrence making next? IMDb it. Who’s that actor who keeps appearing alongside Tom Cruise? IMDb it. Is that guy in Ben-Hur really wearing a wristwatch? IMDb it. And now IMDb, one of the most influential innovations in modern movies, is 25 years old. The story IMDb – a global sensation before Facebook or YouTube were even invented – is a parable of success in the internet age, an amateur pastime that became a multi-million dollar business without sacrificing its founding principles. IMDb has become the world’s defacto source of credits, goofs and other trivia, it’s one-click access like finding the Holy Grail for cinephiles hitherto confined to printed guides. In turn, IMDb’s user-generated star ratings overrode critical orthodoxy to create a truly popularist canon where The Shawshank Redemption outperforms critical faves like Vertigo . . . In 2008 IMDb bolstered its strength by acquiring the Box Office Mojo and Withoutabox websites, meaning that the entire film experience in in some ways mediated by IMDb. Directors submit their films to festivals via the Withoutbox service; the project receives its IMDb title page; the film is premiered and then released; the gross is listed on Box Office Mojo; the data on its popularity is fed back to studios via STARmeter." – Total Film
"When today’s moviegoers search for showtimes, trailers or reviews, they need not consult the newspaper. Instead they browse The Internet Movie Database or IMDb, as most identify the top-visited destination for contemporary and historical film with a combined digital audience of more than 190 million . . . This year IMDb celebrates its 25th anniversary as it achieves a milestone approaching 200 million parcels of data, essentially the entire historical memory of the industry and the films that shape us as a people. The Google for the moving image, IMDb in recent years has added original content beyond its encyclopedic summaries of actors and their films . . . many would say that the new Golden Age of cinema began with the creation of IMDb’s website." – PBS
"Director Tim Burton's testimonial on the IMDb website seems to best sum up Hollywood's obsession with IMDb, although he's hardly alone in raving about Needham's creation. ‘I use it to find out who I am, what I've done and what I intend to do.’ It's hardly a surprise that IMDb has such a rampant following within the film industry (IMDb Pro, the site's subscription service, has become the industry standard)." – The Independent
"IMDb's movies and TV apps for iOS and Android have now been downloaded more than 100 million times, which puts it in rarified air that includes Facebook, Instagram, Angry Birds and others still counted in the dozens." – Mashable
"IMDb is one of the world’s most popular websites and functions as Hollywood’s memory. And that means IMDb has great power." – The Financial Times
"Boasting a combined mobile and web audience of over 190 million unique visitors per month, IMDb’s searchable database offers over 150 million data items, including over 5.5 million cast and crew members and over 2.7 million movies and TV programs. A subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., IMDb.com is the number-one movie site in the world." – Venture Beat
"Coursing full-tilt as we are through an age that prizes among its forgoing virtues the notion of efficiency, one sure indicator of success is the refashioning of a brand name into a succinct verb: Think Google it, Facebook him, Instagram that. In just this way, and thanks to Col Needham, we now have the ability ‘to IMDb' any and all of our film and TV-related queries. As anyone who works in the entertainment industry, aspires to ingratiate herself within its ranks, or ardently or casually counts herself among its admirers knows: The Internet Movie Database is an indispensable resource. Who was that guy who was in that thing we saw last year? IMDb it. Which other movies has this director helmed? IMDb it. Who represents that actress, and how can I get in touch with her? IMDb(Pro) it" – Film Journal Magazine
"For more than 24 years, IMDb has stood tall in the face of the emerging of hundreds of other movie and TV websites that could have taken it down. This 100 million-download milestone proves that it still holds the reigns as a one-stop shop for discovering entertainment information and news, the resumes of any actor, filmographies, biographies, film distributors, and more." – VentureBeat
"IMDb's 100 million downloads milestone is a testament to its evolution. It's almost unheard of that over 24 years — a span that has seen the rise and fall of hundreds of sexier online brands — that this one site could defend its place as the go-to for an actor's resume, a film's distributor, a TV show's cast or any combination of entertainment and celebrity news and information. But there's a reason for that. Like parent company Amazon, IMDb likes to 'stay a couple of steps ahead' of customers, Needham said." – Mashable
"IMDb is also a symbol of the changing value of data. What began as trivia could soon be integral to the process of making movies itself. IMDb was bought by Amazon in 1998, right at the beginning of the internet giant’s quest to understand the world’s consumer habits and sell us what we want. Now IMDb and Amazon are part of a changing Hollywood, trying to use our clicks, our comments, our ratings – even our ideas – to create the next billion-dollar franchise, the next Breaking Bad. [IMDb] now functions for some as Hollywood’s memory. And that means IMDb has great power. Not necessarily in a very active or intrusive sense but in more of a utility sense, like Los Angeles’ electricity or water supply. 'I can remember life before IMDb,' Richard Hicks, the casting director of Gravity and Zero Dark Thirty told me. 'It was a Kafkaesque assemblage of file cabinets and Rolodex cards and scrawled notes on the backs of pictures and résumés.' When the site went down for a couple of hours for maintenance recently, Hicks simply stopped working." – Financial Times
"There are already indications of convergence under way between IMDb and the Hollywood machine, between Needham’s catalogue and the industry he idolises. In the US, you can click on a film on IMDb and start watching it through Amazon Instant Video (last month this became available to Amazon Prime customers in the UK). And in 2010, Amazon began to produce films and TV itself. The emphasis is on letting the crowd – manifested as clicks, comments, scripts, sitcom situations – submit ideas and then determine which projects get green-lit or not. So far 18,000 movie ideas and 4,000 TV proposals have been sent in, and Amazon Studios released its second season of five TV pilots last month. Roy Price, the director of the studio, described the project to me as a 'part of a broader technology-enabled cultural shift' to make film-making more democratic. 'IMDb as a platform can be part of that,' he said.” –The Financial Times “The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) publishes a list of more than four million descriptive keywords, or tags (from ‘abusive boyfriend’ to ‘Ziegfeld Follies’), associated with its index of films. We analyzed the data for the 503 films that have been nominated for best picture since the beginning of the Academy Awards, in 1928 (we included the 1929 finalists in our tally, though no official nominations were announced that year). Our goal was to identify those themes, motifs, and plots that have been most durable over the years—and those that have cycled into and out of fashion." – Vanity Fair Magazine
"Through each acquisition and adaptation, IMDb has never ceased to keep pace with the times. This past March, the site, now host to 190 million unique monthly users, celebrated the 100-millionth download of its popular mobile app." – Film Journal Magazine
“Col Needham created the Internet Movie Database in 1990. It has since become the number one movie website in the world, with more than 160 million unique monthly visitors.” – Backstage Magazine (August 2013)
“There are few sites that reach iconic status, and fewer still that soar to the heights of The Internet Movie Database, which ranks as the #1 movie website in the world and the 25th most popular site in the United States. IMDb is used to settle arguments, give status to stars and movies, begin comment wars and otherwise serve cinephiles the world over with a dizzying display of details. We can no longer imagine life without it.” – Beyond Cinema (October 2013)
“Launched in 1990 — virtually the dawn of the World Wide Web — Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) is today one of the most-visited URLs in existence, frequently ranking among the 50 top sites in the world. But big things often have small beginnings, and this was certainly the case with IMDb, which had its genesis online as a humble Usenet post about favorite actresses penned by movie buff Col Needham, to which others began contributing their own information about fave performers and films, ultimately resulting in one of the most successful crowd-sourced repositories of information in existence.” – Geek Magazine (July 2013)
“IMDb.com is today one of the most-visited URLs in existence, frequently ranking among the 50 top sites in the world. [IMDb is] one of the most successful crowd-sourced repositories of information in existence.” – Geek Magazine
“It's hard to think of a movie website more essential than IMDb.com. Over twenty years old now, the site (and its apps) remain an essential source for movie fans and professionals alike. The company, now owned by Amazon, is anchored in the Pacific Northwest, but Col Needham remains at the helm from his office in the U.K. Lately, he's excited about X-Ray for Movies, a new app for Kindle and Wii that let's users tap on an actor while watching a movie to get real time bio info from the IMDb server. He's also watching the way users are moving to mobile devices to use his products. ‘We have 160 million users access IMDb every single month,’ he said, ‘and it’s at the point now where 50% of our page views are on mobile devices.’” – The Film Society's Daily Buzz
“One media executive pointed out one aspect of IMDB's popularity: if you use search engines to look for the title of virtually any past movie or television show, or the names of celebrities from those realms, IMDB often comes up as the first result. In the retail business, that is the equivalent of excellent shelf frontage, or, in television, of having a single-digit channel number rather than being relegated to Channel 284 on the cable lineup. Today, IMDB makes money from advertising, selling publicity photos, licensing content, selling movie tickets through partners and offering a premium IMDB Pro service, which was started in 2002.” – The New York Times
“Col Needham, 45, is founder and chief executive of Internet Movie Database, the world's leading online source for information about movies and television shows and for celebrity news. Every month, the site attracts more than 160 million visitors who come to watch movie trailers, read reviews or check out the comprehensive rundown of a movie's cast and crew. Its database contains more than 100 million items, including information about more than 2 million movies and TV shows and some 4 million cast and crew members.” – The LA Times
“The world’s biggest and most trusted movie website is run by a self-confessed British geek from a suburban home. Film-mad Colin Needham’s IMDb.com — the Internet Movie Database — is the 42nd most popular site on the planet.” – The Sun
“Where does the hub of the world’s film knowledge lie? Is it in the Hollywood Museum in LA? Archived in the British Film Institute Library in Central London? Buried under the Walk of Fame on Hollywood and Vine? Nope. It’s actually located just outside Bristol Parkway train station in the UK. Here, Colin ‘Col’ Needham, founder of The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), sits at the centre of a vast digital web that holds details of over 1.2m movies from all around the world.” – Total Film
“IMDb quickly became the market leader in its field. It still is: when it comes to online film coverage, no one can touch IMDb. The site is now among the 50 most popular websites in the world, with 160 million monthly unique users.” – The UK Guardian
“IMDb [is] the go-to site for millions of film and TV viewers.” – The LA Times
“IMDb, a vast repository of movie and television information that has become Hollywood’s quasi-official record book, compiles the facts and figures by which people in the entertainment industry are publicly defined. IMDb looms large because of its reach — it claims more than 110 million monthly unique visitors worldwide and is often at or near the top of movie-related Google searches.” – The New York Times
“IMDb has expanded over the years to be much more than its name implies. It's not just a "database" of movie information anymore - it's a one-stop-shop for everything related to the entertainment industry. The site indexes data on all movies, TV shows and everyone related to a project, including bios, work histories and photos, but it also serves as an online TV guide, a place to watch trailers (for both past, current and upcoming films), a movie listings service, a box office results tracker and a tracking tool for DVD and Blu-ray release dates. The Android app doesn't disappoint in this regard - it appears to offer everything its iPhone counterpart does, but with the addition of voice search too.” – ReadWriteWeb
“In addition to its extensive and unmatched database, [IMDb] emphasizes video clips and helps fans find what they'd like to see next. Today, the site is one of the largest movie sites in the U.S., with 25.6 million unique visitors in August, according to comScore inc. That ranked it No.1 above Yahoo with 24.3 million and Fandango with 13.4 million. The site has 100 million monthly visitors worldwide.” – Associated Press
“Industry experts say IMDb has the power to make or break careers with information on more than 3.2 million actors and professionals working in the industry. The IMDbPro site has become the industry guide and users pay an extra fee to see exactly what film fans across the world are searching for. The figures are regarded as industry 'gold' and can make or break careers in the notoriously tough industry.” – The UK Telegraph
“This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Internet Movie Database. The single greatest free movie resource in the history of the world has, incredibly, been alive and kicking since October 17, 1990 and to celebrate, the site has been interviewing some of the biggest stars around about film culture, their favorite movies and more.” – SlashFilm.com
“The pioneering movie and TV trivia website has become a go-to source for Hollywood news and gossip, film information, celebrity photos and more.” – TechFlash
“[IMDb is a] vast index of films, actors, directors, crew, production companies, biographies, trivia, reviews, box office data, trailers, photographs, ratings and news that’s become a hub of the film industry.” – UK Telegraph
“IMDb.com has been a beacon for film lovers for two decades now. it’s pretty much the bible for many a cinephile.” – Mashable
“The Godfather of all movie sites is celebrating its 20th Anniversary. IMDb is an awesome tool for movie fans and movie buffs. It is definitely the site I would take with me to a deserted island.” – AnyClip.com
“20 years later, that modest list has grown into the Internet Movie Database, the colossus of web-based information about the entertainment industry.” – TechFlash
About IMDbPro, Withoutabox and Box Office Mojo:
But as a company that doesn't plaster its site with banner ads, IMDb has to make money, and one of these conduits is IMDbPro, a service that lets people manage their IMDb profile, browse casting notices, and generally "network." IMDb itself also acquired two companies in 2008 — Box Office Mojo, a service that tracks box office revenue, and Withoutabox, aimed at helping indie filmmakers distribute their wares. Both of these services operate out of L.A., too. IMDb hosts thousands of videos itself, which can be viewed directly on the site. Through the Withoutabox program, filmmakers can submit movies for distribution and, as part of this process, can choose to have it shown on IMDb too, especially if they don't secure a distribution deal. Though Amazon branding is light on IMDb, there are clear integrations between the two services. Not only does Amazon tap IMDb ratings for its own online video services, but IMDb links through to Amazon to try to sell relevant movies and such to those searching its database. But these integrations are also helping to create some pretty cool stuff. – VentureBeatThe company, which became a subsidiary of Amazon in 1998, now even gives out awards based on its STARmeter, a metric of actors' popularity. It doesn't just document cinema, it now facilitates it. The acquisition of Without A Box in 2008 allows IMDb users to submit their own movies to 850 film festivals worldwide including Sundance. In addition, users also have access to full episodes of shows, entire movies as well as independent short films. They now even have their own web series What to Watch for those too lazy to read reviews. – Catchnews.com
There's also IMDb Pro, a subscription service designed for industry usage, and the acquisition of Box Office Mojo for gross data. In 2009 they launched their first mobile app and have since had over 115 million downloads. X-Ray for movies and TV shows is another innovation that allows you to freeze the scene and find out the name and instant bio of anyone in the scene. IMDb is also moving into producing original content such as their series What To Watch, which focuses on a single movie or tv show. Actors can even tell you what their "STARmeter" score is and now since 2013 IMDb has gotten into the awards business giving STARmeter trophies to grateful stars, most recently when Room star Brie Larson won the honor at IMDb's annual dinner at the Toronto International Film Festival (they do these dinners that also test the invitees film knowledge in Cannes and Sundance as well – Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs among those playing at TIFF this year). – Deadline
The #1 movie website in the world, IMDb was acquired by Amazon in Seattle. The site has more than 250 million unique users every month. IMDbPro uses their page views to compile a weekly STARmeter chart, ranking actors in order of user interest. – Evening Magazine TV Show
"Director Tim Burton's testimonial on the website seems to best sum up Hollywood's obsession with IMDb, although he's hardly alone in raving about Needham's creation. ‘I use it to find out who I am, what I've done and what I intend to do.’ It's hardly a surprise that IMDb has such a rampant following within the film industry (IMDb Pro, the site's subscription service, has become the industry standard). It allows many of them to stroke their egos with the Starmeter -- whoever's at the top is the most powerful person in Hollywood for that week, based on how many views their IMDb profile page has had." -- The Independent
"In 2002, [IMDb] launched IMDbPro, the commercial subscription service for entertainment professionals that provides contact information, detailed box office data and the proprietary STARmeter and MOVIEmeter tools, which track the popularity of people and titles over time. In 2008 IMDb bolstered its strength by acquiring the Box Office Mojo and Withoutabox websites, meaning that the entire film experience in in some ways mediated by IMDb. Directors submit their films to festivals via the Withoutbox service; the project receives its IMDb title page; the film is premiered and then released; the gross is listed on Box Office Mojo; the data on its popularity is fed back to studios via STARmeter. Pro Casting beds IMDb further into the creation of movies by providing a platform to help producers find cast members." -- Total Film
"Every day movie fans all over the world turn to the free IMDb to look up details of who, what and where on movies. No more need to fight over trivia at dinner parties. But Hollywood insiders pay to dig deeper into IMDb's premium subscriber service IMDbPro, launched a decade ago, which offers up inside intel on contact listings, in-production information and what's in development. And while many casting directors already use the service to find actors for their movies--Rob Pattinson was famously discovered for Twilight via such a search for the right actor in the right age range--they should be happy with a nifty new set of Pro Casting tools that goes along with a speedy consumer-friendly revamp of the site. ‘Our goal is always to help get people informed and connected,’ said IMDb CEO Col Needham at SXSW. Gone are the days when casting directors must carry around thick binders full of casting intel. ‘IMDbPro is probably the single most helpful tool in the tool box when I’m casting one of the leads in a movie,’ said casting director Richard Hicks (Gravity, Zero Dark Thirty). ‘There’s nothing better. It’s the encyclopedia of actors.’ IMDb, always vigilant about finding ways to serve their global readers, has created a set of new tools for casting directors that launch[ed] March 11, 2014." -- INDIEWIRE
"In announcing Pro Casting, IMDb garnered quotes from several casting directors praising the service, including Richard Hicks (“Gravity,” ”Zero Dark Thirty,” “Game Change”) who is president of the Casting Society of America; Kerry Barden (“Dallas Buyers Club,” “August: Osage County,” “Winter’s Bone”); Carrie Audino (“Mad Men”); and Sharon Bialy (“The Walking Dead,” “Breaking Bad”). The new Pro Casting suite lets casting directors and filmmakers post unlimited casting notices, and use IMDb’s search engine to narrow submissions by specific criteria such as performance skills and physical attributes. In addition, users can now add candidates to a personalized list, which can be shared via social networks and email. Casting directors also see how an actor’s popularity has trended over time via IMDbPro’s new STARmeter graphs and receive recommendations of actors similar to the ones they are currently viewing. Actors, meanwhile, can use Pro Casting to update their IMDbPro profile page with headshots and demo reels and share their page via social networks and email. Thesps can browse and filter through casting notices, and apply directly for roles. ‘Combining our new Casting tools with our unrivaled data (more than 130 million data items including more than 5.5 million cast and crew members), advanced search tools and vast user and subscriber base, we are uniquely positioned to revolutionize the casting process,’ IMDb founder and CEO Col Needham said in a statement. Along with Pro Casting, IMDbPro launched a redesigned site aimed at making it easier to use. For example, users can now find complete contact information on the main detail page for the 200,000-plus industry professionals and companies listed on IMDbPro." -- Variety Magazine
"Subscription service IMDb Pro is ubiquitously used among showbiz personnel, providing them with individual and company contact information, as well as with news of projects in development, pre-production and production." -- Film Journal Magazine
"When the producers of The Americans decided that Russian characters were going to speak Russian and the show would use subtitles, Adam Arkin, who directed three episodes in the show’s first season, went on the Internet and started looking for actors. ‘I was really aware that the decision was going to reduce our talent pool,’ he says. Arkin went onto imdb.com and found the reel of an actress he’d never heard of: Annet Mahendru. ‘Most of the material was light comedy, and she was speaking English. It was clear she was talented,’ Arkin says." -- The NY Post
"We are basically the number one resource for people in the world [to help actors and executives in the entertainment industry]—which applies to casual movie fans but also to casting directors, development executives, or some role in which you hire people in the film industry. Having an IMDbPro account, which by turn gets you an IMDb résumé subscription, enables you to manage your presence and how you present yourself to the rest of the industry. If you’re looking for jobs, ideally it helps you find a job. If you’re seeking talent, it helps you seek talent. Make sure all your information is up to date and you have an engaging page that will raise people’s interest. Have good photos and a nicely written bio. That will all help raise your visibility. My personal favorite [story about actors being cast through IMDb] is Robert Pattinson, who was cast in Twilight as a result of an IMDbPro search. Summit was trying to find the right actor to play Edward, and it became a case of going to IMDbPro and looking for actors 15 to 25. Somebody diligently printed all that information out, spread it out on the table, and found Rob via his IMDbPro page." -- Excerpt from Col Needham interview in Backstage Magazine (August 2, 2013)
"A newer version of IMDb Pro allows for more personal information, helping actors break into the industry and make connections that replicate some aspects of popular social media sites like Facebook and Google Plus. IMDb has been a launch pad for struggling actors in the past -- like Robert Pattinson. Summit Entertainment was trying to find an actor for the role of Edward Cullen in Twilight. Casting directors for the film looked at IMDb profiles when Pattinson's name was mentioned for the part. For the actor, the franchise gave him a break into the industry. The five movies in the Twilight franchise collectively made over $3.3 billion worldwide. 'IMDb helps people in the industry find jobs and connect people together,' Col Needham said. For actors, IMDb Pro can be used as a resume. An updated version of Pro was offered at the beginning of this year. It has a new design, stronger search capabilities and more detailed profile pages. In some ways, IMDb Pro acts like a social media site. 'The more info an actor provides, the more likely they are to progress through the industry,' Needham said. IMDb also posts a weekly STARmeter, which ranks actors and actresses based on their popularity. STARmeter rankings are derived from page views of actors' profiles. The STARmeter can be a useful tool for casting directors because they can keep track of an actor's popularity. Romel De Silva, a young actor living in Los Angeles, uses an IMDb Pro account for his resume and skills. He was in NBC’s The Office series finale and on the first episode of Netflix’s revived Arrested Development. He said professionals have told him that they look at IMDb pages and the popularity meter. 'Many things on an actor's page including the STARmeter popularity rank and credits can make or break a casting director's decision,' De Silva said. De Silva said he also used IMDb to research agencies, production details and other actors. 'Young actors and actresses should use IMDb so they can know who they are working with. It really gives new meaning to the phrase: In this industry, it's who you know.'" -- LA Times (June 2013)
"Costing $125 a year, IMDbPro provides fuller contact details for talent, as well as their upcoming projects; and, crucially, it boasts the Starmeter, which ranks actors, directors, writers and producers in order of desirability. The algorithm is simple: how many views has their IMDb profile page had that week? As Col Needham explains, the industry can use this info to invest wisely: ‘You can catch a rising star while they're at cheaper prices, or you can find people who are still great but on the way down.’ Producers eager to cast the lead in Twilight reportedly came up with Robert Pattinson by ordering a flunky to provide a list of everyone with a certain Starmeter rating who had also been in a Harry Potter film." -- UK Guardian
"IMDb’s STARmeter [is a] rating system based on the data collected from the billions of clicks made by the site’s millions of users that show exactly which movies, actors and filmmakers are being looked at in a given week. As a barometer of public taste, the STARmeter proved compulsive reading for Hollywood insiders – and proved seriously influential." -- American Way (American Airlines’ In-Flight Magazine/May 2013)
"For $99 a year, IMDB Pro subscribers get granular access to all kinds of industry data, like movie budgets and details about films in production. By chronicling everyone who ever worked on a film, the service has become a de facto directory of just about everyone from key grips to producers, actors and directors. Its most clever feature is probably the Starmeter and Movimeter ratings, which gauge the popularity of people and films, based on search topics." -- New York Times
"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Col Needham's creation [IMDb] is that, by being the default destination for cinema-goers, he can now influence the movies made for their consumption. Costing $125 a year, IMDbPro provides fuller contact details for talent, as well as their upcoming projects; and, crucially, it boasts the Starmeter, which ranks actors, directors, writers and producers in order of desirability. The algorithm is simple: how many views has their IMDb profile page had that week? As Needham explains, the industry can use this info to invest wisely: 'You can catch a rising star while they're at cheaper prices, or you can find people who are still great but on the way down.' Producers eager to cast the lead in Twilight reportedly came up withRobert Pattinson by ordering a flunky to provide a list of everyone with a certain Starmeter rating who had also been in a Harry Potter film." -- UK Guardian
"Tom Cruise is starring in an adaptation of Lee Child’s books featuring Jack Reacher. Cruise plays Reacher alongside the likes of Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog and David Oyelowo. However, if you go over to the IMDb page (at the time of writing and screenshot below) you will see that Tom Cruise is not the top actor in the cast list. That honour goes to Alexander Rhodes whose character is simply called Suspicious Onlooker. The reason for this is that IMDB rank the stars of a movie by the number of page views they get. Alexander posted a screenshotfrom IMDB on Reddit just to show he was in the film. This caused a lot of people to check out his page resulting in him moving up thecast list on Jack Reacher. Other people heard about it, checked it out and it snowballed. Plus if you check out the STARmeter on IMDb Pro Alexander is in 8th place! When Alexander was fifth in the cast Tom Cruise got onto it as well [by sending a supportive Tweet. As a result of this exposure and the boost to his IMDb STARmeter ranking, Alexander Rhodes was signed by a manager.]" -- Liveforfilms.com
"Ashley Greene didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she signed on for Twilight. She even asked her boss to hold her day job as a waitress. 'I was working at the Belmont Cafe in L.A., got the call, and two weeks later was rehearsing. Right when I was cast, my IMDb STARmeter [a chart that tracks searches on actors] went through the roof — all of ours did, and we hadn’t even done anything yet!'" -- Nylon Magazine
“An executive at the studio, Summit Entertainment president of worldwide production Erik Feig, recalls saying to a colleague before going to lunch one day, ‘I know we’ve looked. I just feel there are a couple of rocks that we haven’t checked under.’ I said, ‘There have to be British actors that we don’t know about that are this guy, who can do a great American accent.’ I said, ‘Do me a favor. Go to IMDb and look at every young actor, from age 15 to 25, who was in Harry Potter or anything, even a tiny role, print out their headshots.’ I came back from lunch. She had all these pictures, and she said, as we were going through the pictures, ‘What about this guy?’ And I saw a picture of Cedric Diggory [the character Pattinson played in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]. I said, ‘He’s great!’ … And the look that jumped out to me at that point, and I know it’s a silly adjective to use, he was Byronic.’” – Vanity Fair Magazine (The studio discovered Robert Pattinson for the role of Edward in Twilight on IMDb)
“Berenice Marlohe has revealed that she used the IMDb to land a role in new James Bond movie Skyfall. The French actress said that she used the online resource to get an audition for Bond Girl Séverine in Daniel Craig’s latest 007 outing. ‘It's very difficult in France to get access to castings when you don't have any relationships. I totally heard by chance that they were doing the casting for a James Bond movie, and that one of the auditions was taking place in Paris. So I tried myself to contact every name involved in the movie I could possibly find on the IMDb! I finally managed to get the first audition in Paris, then I did the second in London with Sam Mendes, and then the third was with Sam and Daniel Craig, again in London. And then I was cast!’” – Digital Spy (January 23, 2012)
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