Legendary movie marketing innovator Joseph Farrell died this morning of natural causes. He was 76. Farrell is the former chairman and CEO of The National Research Group which quickly became the leading market research firm in the film industry, serving studios and filmmakers and distributors worldwide. Among the services he introduced, now taken for granted by the film industry, are “trackings”, “test screenings”, “trailer” and TVspot testing and norms by “quadrants” and other socio-demographics analyses, and “early warning” forecasting of movies’ box office potential. In 2003 Farrell created FP Productions with a first-look deal at Disney where he was special advisor to the chairman. In 2009 FP Productions went indie and its feature films include Joy Full Noise to be released in January by Warner Bros, and The Leonardo Job in development with Alcon Entertainment. Farrell continued as a marketing consultant to top executives at several major studios and investment banking groups.

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