Washington: Ever wondered why some modern Hollywood movies are so successful? Well, the secret behind those blockbusters could be a mathematical formula, scientists have claimed.

American researchers, who analysed the length of every shot in 150 high-grossing movies in various genres released between 1935 and 2005, found that many blockbusters follow a mathematical way to capitalise on audiences’ fickle attention spans.

“Filmmakers have got better and better at constructing shots so that their lengths grab our attention,” says James Cutting, lead researcher and a psychologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. “The rhythm of shot sequences in film is designed to drive the rhythm of attention and information uptake in the viewer.”

From their analysis, Cutting and his team found that the more recent the movies were, the more closely their shot lengths tended to follow a mathematical pattern that also describes human attention spans, the New Scientist reported.

They found 2005-blockbuster ‘Star Wars Episode III — Revenge of the Sith’ and the 1980 classic ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ followed the complicated formula.

Other films that also appeared to follow similar formula included ‘The Perfect Storm’, ‘Pretty Woman’ and ‘Rebel Without a Cause’, said the report. Cutting’s report is based on a University of Texas study, conducted in early 1990s, that measured the attention spans of volunteers as they performed hundreds of trials.