Movie production teams face a long-standing dilemma of balancing movie artistic creativity and financial performance. Drawing on middle-status conformity theory, we argue that the status of movie production teams (manifested as team average network centrality) has a U-shape relationship with movie performance rated by consumers and movie professionals. Drawing on the institutional theory of isomorphism and research on hierarchical differentiation, we argue that the U-shape relationship is weakened by producers’ status, major investment firms, and team status differentiation. Using data on 1,442 motion pictures released in mainland China between 2001 and 2022, we found significant results on the U-shape relationships between movie team status and two movie performances (online movie ratings by consumers and festival nominations by professionals). Producers’ status, major investment firms, and team status differentiation weakened the U-shape relationships between movie team status and online movie ratings. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for movie production team composition and management.
