HOLLYWOOD, California, July 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Family-oriented movies are again topping the box office this summer, while only one R-rated movie has grossed more than $100 million this year.
The cartoon "Despicable Me," released July 9, grossed an estimated $60.1 million on its opening weekend, well above the $30-5 million industry experts expected. The wildly successful "Toy Story 3" has also soared past $339 million after its fourth weekend, while two other children's movies, "The Karate Kid" and "The Last Airbender" have also drawn considerable sums.
"Films aimed at parents with kids have been so hot this summer that even executives marketing R-rated horror movies must be tempted to work a couple of bars of 'We Are Family' into promo spots," wrote The Hollywood Reporter's Carl DiOrio.
Pursuing an answer to "that puzzling matter of why family-film openings are so tough to predict," Chuck Viane, the president of distribution at Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, noted a potential flaw in the method for gauging interest in family films. "The simplest answer is that the tracking doesn't include the young kids themselves," he said.
Another source quoted in the article pinpointed "the nag factor" as the secret to such films' success. "The parents might be less inclined than the kids to see a picture, but then the kids pester the parents, and the rest is history," said the studio executive.
But Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, suggested that the phenomenon "shouldn't be that hard to figure out."
"It happens over and over again. And still the ‘executives’ are caught off guard," wrote Bozell. "Nobody needs a graphing calculator. Bring out the whole family, and you bring out a bigger audience."
Bozell pointed out that only one R-rated movie, "Shutter Island," has grossed more than $100 million so far this year.
"Why can't greedy Hollywood just look at the math and put their money where the American public's eyes want to go?" he asked.