Kolkata, Dec 17 (IANS): Stars alone cannot make a movie a box office success. But they indirectly contribute to it as distributors are drawn to films which have the big names, and thus a good distribution network sends the cash registers ringing, a US- based professor says in a research paper.

Tridib Mazumdar, a marketing professor in US-based Whitman School of Management in Syracuse, New York, has done research on the effect of a star cast in a movie and how having a star on board affects its box office collections.

"My goal was to separate it (the effect of the star on the movie's performance) out. Let's not give credit to (the star) where it wasn't (his contribution)," Mazumdar told IANS on the sidelines of an event organised by Kolkata-based International Management Institute (IMI), here Tuesday.

IMI is one of the leading business schools in the country and has international collaborations with Institut d'Administration des Entreprises de Tours from France, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and Oxford Institute of Retail Management, both based out of Britain.

"My focus was on stars; whether having a star causes a movie to succeed or not. There were two sides of the research -- effect of star power on distribution and effect on box office", he added.

According to Mazumdar, movie stars get selected to the movies which are likely to succeed. They pick and choose the particular script, director and the producer which is likely to make the movie a success.

Further, movies featuring one or more stars get widely distributed and it is through this distribution network that the box office revenue comes in.

"Stars contribute nothing to the revenue (through their talent). Stars do contribute to the distribution. So, star movies are widely distributed and through the distribution, you get revenue."

Mazumdar focused his research on Hollywood, estimated to be US$ 12 billion presently, and used counterfactual technique for the findings.

Counterfactual technique is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened. It is also used to measure prejudice, discrimination and related subjects.