What gets a director a second film?

Ted Hope reached out to ask:What percentage of first-time feature filmmakers made a second film within five years?A damn fine question. Is it talent? Connections? Money? Luck? A famous parent and a good haircut? So I turned to the data. I took every person whose first feature film was released between 1990 and 2018 (146,603 directors worldwide) and followed what happened next. For each of them, I gathered a pile of possible clues about the debut, such as:Who produced itWhat genre it wasWhether it won anythingWhether anyone actually watched itWhat the director had made beforehandand more. Then I measured which clues went with a second film and which did not.In the end, the biggest clue turned out to be one almost nobody talks about.How rare is a second film?Let’s start with the base rate. Of the 146,603 debut directors, 25.3% directed a second feature within five years. I’ll call this the ‘Comeback Rate’ (the share of debut directors who direct another feature within five years), and…