Warner Bros. Marketing executive Richard Del Belso died on March 5 at the age of 76. His husband, jazz singer and lyricist Mark Winkler, confirmed the news on Monday.
Del Belso, who spent 25 years at the company working on every major release including four Best Picture winners “Chariots of Fire,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Unforgiven,” and “Million Dollar Baby,” died in his Los Angeles home following a year-long battle with lung cancer.
“Richard was the best research guy I’ve ever come across,” former Warner Bros. Chairman Bob Daly said in a statement. “He was smart and thorough; he spoke his mind, and he was right 90 percent of the time. He was also just a really good person. He certainly will be missed.”
Del Belso is credited with revolutionizing movie market research, bringing aspects of political research and traditional advertising to marketing films. He helped make standard practice techniques including test screenings, trailer and TV commercial testing, seasonal preferences by audience, socio-demographics analyses, as well as then patented weekend tracking studies predicting opening box-office numbers.
“Richard was very special,” filmmaker Richard Donner said. “On a personal level, he was just fun to be around; on an executive level, his research and insightful interpretations were absolutely invaluable to Lauren and me during our post-production and marketing phases.”