I originally wrote this piece 6 months ago on my site and after seeing that a movie based on a book aimed at 14 year old girls just broke box office records, I figured it might be relevant. This is one of those time I hate being right. I will save the Twilight rant and believe me I have one. I got into a screaming match with my boss at the toy store over this horrific bull shit they are passing off as storytelling.

Movies get made because someone was able to sell the idea that people will spend money to come see it. 14 year old girls love Zack Efron and 14 yr old boys love 14 yr old girls. If the 14 yr old boys know the 14 yr old girls will be at a particular movie, they will want to be there too. Sitcom episodes have been written about this dynamic not because they are funny, but because they are true and that is what makes it funny in a sitcom and f*cking painful for a film lover.

How many times have you seen ads for movies that no adult in their right mind would ever go see but somehow these flicks make tens of millions of dollars if not more. Where did this all start? Good question.

As with everything that is wrong with this country, it all started back in the 80’s. The 80’s is when the love of the all mighty dollar took a sharp turn and became the one thing that motivated everyone. It was the 80’s that gave us our first horror film that was rated PG that made parents uncomfortable. Gremlins in 1984. You throw in Temple of Doom from the same year and what you get is a new rating called PG-13.

This opened the door to making PG films with a bit more of an edge. It worked for a while. At the same time business types for the first time saw an untapped market of film goers who don’t know sh*t about movies and would go see anything that looked half interesting and starred some attractive young people. There is an entire list of films from the 80’s that were aimed at the teen audience even if they happened to be R. The Breakfast Club is a prime example. A rated R movie that every teenager went on and on about seeing. Along with the other flicks we got from the Brat Pack, The Breakfast Club was an R rated movie aimed at a younger audience that could not see the movie.

I remember the first R movie I watched with my parents. It was a film I did not have to beg them to let me watch. It was Highlander. It was Scifi/Fantasy action and it was a lot of fun. A film that would never had been as good had it been PG-13.

There are few flicks that come out each year that have the balls to hit the audience in the chest and take the film to the limits of gripping, suck you in storytelling.

When Sam Raimi, the man that gave us the legendary Evil Dead, makes a new horror flick and it is rated PG-13, all I can do is hang my head in defeat and realize that I am part of a dying breed. A film goer that could not wait to be an adult to see the kinds of movies I had not seen when I was kid because they were rated R.

The new PG-13 rating made it that much easier for Hollywood to hit a new target audience and make them the dominating factor for the future of the entertainment industry.

The old standard for marketing research was the 18-34 crowd. A large group of people who were most likely employed and had the money to spend on a night’s entertainment. Then we became a society that saw more and more households that consisted of 2 working parents that needed time to just sit at home and unwind and what better way to get the kids out of the house than to send them to the theater.

You know where the kids are at and there have not been that many crazy abduction stories that took place at a theater. It is the last place parents feel comfortable dropping off their teenagers and not worry about the worst happening to them.

We created this mess. My generation saw more of us going to the theater on a more regular basis and opened the eyes of Hollywood to an untapped market of kids who were happy to spend their parent’s money and parents that were happy to get a couple hours of peace and quiet. You may think I am going out on a limb but it is all there. My teen years covered from 87-94.

Top grossing films in 1987

1. Three Men and a Baby
2. Fatal Attraction
3. Beverly Hills Cop II
4. Good Morning, Vietnam
5. Moonstruck
6. The Untouchables
7. The Secret of My Success
8. Stakeout
9. Lethal Weapon
10. The Witches of Eastwick

1994

1. Forrest Gump
2. The Lion King
3. True Lies
4. The Santa Clause
5. The Flintstones
6. Dumb and Dumber
7. Clear and Present Danger
8. Speed
9. The Mask
10. Pulp Fiction

The point I am trying to make here is this. Most of the top grossing films in 1987 were R and most of the top grossing films in 1994 are not. The market shifted and Hollywood shifted to keep itself profitable. While I am not happy about it and I have seen a sharp decline in the number of quality entertaining films for an adult to sit and watch without their kids has been slowly dwindling for years. Let’s take a look at the top grossing flicks from last year.

2008

1. The Dark Knight
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3. Kung Fu Panda
4. Hancock
5. Mamma Mia!
6. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
7. Iron Man
8. Quantum of Solace
9. WALL-E
10. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Just for S ‘n’ G’s let’s take a look at 2007 as well.

2007

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
3. Spider-Man 3
4. Shrek the Third
5. Transformers
6. Ratatouille
7. I Am Legend
8. The Simpsons Movie
9. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
10. 300

Still think I am crazy?

In the last 2 years the only R rated movie that broke into the top ten was 300. What do think it will look like at the end of this year?

While I will go on record as saying that the PG-13 rating is killing the art of film, it is hard to deny that there are still some high quality flicks still getting made that carry the rating. We have however lost the ability to see another Lethal Weapon or Die Hard or Highlander or Platoon made again with any kind of studio backing.

The art has been confined to fit in a box and art should never be confined. The artist should be free to realize the vision they had in mind, not the vision that does $100 million at the box office. R has become the new NC-17 and I almost guarantee you will never see an NC-17 film theatrically released in the next 20 years.

The other side of the coin is this. What do think has happened to those scenes that get cut to make the PG-13 rating? The growing trend is to release the Unrated Version of the film that gives you what the director wanted you to see in theaters. Many of the movies being released are in dire need of the Unrated version and I have found it often makes for a better movie. If you don’t believe me watch Superbad as it was released to theaters and then watch the Unrated version. There are chunks of the movie missing from the theatrical release.

Here I sit at around 1300 long winded words just to say this. I may be angry that film has become about the business first and the films second, but that is where we are and I really don’t think there is going to be much of a change anytime soon.

All box office numbers are from this page on Wikipedia.