“In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings.” – Norman Lear.It was twenty five years ago this week that PG-13 first came into existence, though it would be another seven weeks until the first distributed film bearing the new rating, RED DAWN, was released in US theaters.
But on June 23, 1984, THE FLAMINGO KID was submitted by 20th Century Fox to the MPAA and given the PG-13 rating after months of debate over what to do about the explicit violence cropping up in PG rated films, and the perceived need to warn parents without handicapping the box office gross.
It wouldn't be announced to the public until July 1st, but the lead time needed to produce printed materials bearing the release date necessitated notifying the film's producers, who opted to hold back the release until December. It had been language, not violence, that factored into board's decision.
What was the second film to receive the fledgling rating?
Dreamscape
Many film buffs erroneously attribute the creation of the PG-13 rating to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. When worded as such they are almost correct. Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark sequel was (along with the Amblin produced Gremlins) definitely the impetus for the new rating. But both Gremlins & Indy were released in US theaters with PG ratings. When each was re-released in theaters, and subsequently on VHS, posters and ad materials for both films were printed with PG-13 ratings on them, but Paramount and Warner were able to maintain the original MPAA certifications, and those marketing materials are now collectors items.
The irony is that this rating, which was created to help box-office revenue has since come to be seen as a sort of box-office death. Most films post-1990 released with a PG-13 rating have failed.
Before crying foul, it should be noted that most films with any rating are failures, but there is an extremely high percentage of films rated PG-13 that have underperformed studio expectations to the degree that they are considered box-office flops. Of course the argument can be made that PG-13 rated films by their very nature imply higher expectations than PG or R rated films, because they walk a very specific line that can be intentionally tipped one way or the other. In other words, if a film is released with a PG-13 rating, it has been released specifically to attract an audience that can't attend an R-rated movie. It is also supposed to draw an audience that requires more violence, sex or profanity than that which a general or PG release has to offer. That target market represents the highest sought box-office income, as it's the demographic that prolongs or cuts short the life of the ever-prized franchise.
And those projects carry the highest expectations, right?
Not exactly. That theory is not a law yet because there have been (and continue to be) extremely successful franchises requiring mere Parental Guidance. In fact, until 2001, every non-horror franchise that had earned upwards of one-hundred million dollars had been PG rated. Therefore, if the amount of money equals the amount of expectation, the highest scrutiny would be reserved for guaranteeing a PG rating.
From 1984 - 1989, however, PG-13 was money in the bank. PG-13 performed the task demanded by the cinema owners: it allowed tweens to contribute to the weekend take of films that they would normally be prohibited from viewing. It appeased the family groups that had criticized the MPAA for passing films as PG that had been previously straddling the line a bit. Most importantly, the promise of more mature content created a must-see fervor in kids over twelve years of age, which added to the nag factor, leading many families to use the PG-13 film as fodder for a cheap, no-fuss family outing. This increased the box-office by several bodies per household on blockbuster-calibre entertainment.
Where the studios went wrong, however, is by increasing the budgets of these films. Basically, they increased beyond their capacity to recoup, and by splitting the difference, they came up empty handed. In other words, by catering to two audiences, they pleased neither and word of mouth killed them.
Then, in 2001, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy launched, and changed all the rules about box-office limitations for the PG-13 rating. A couple of years later, the second and third installments of the Matrix series proved that it was possible to replicate the success of an R-rated film using the franchise mold. In the opposite direction, it used to be that a horror film with a PG-13 rating would be dead on arrival, but the Ring films disproved that, so it's anybody's guess if these factors are as relevant as we marketing folks like to think.
One would hope that it's the projects rather than the ratings that drive the dollars, but it tends to be the marketing dollars that drive the success, and the ratings do factor into what money gets spent where. If you miss your demo, you're dead. How many films aimed at 16-year-old girls have been repackaged for Lifetime Television Network, rather than risk a theatrical release? Only Andrea Wong knows for sure...
The truth is that you can get away with a whole lot more on television than you ever could in the movie theater. The boob tube is the last uncharted territory. Anything goes until it can't anymore. As long as the audience follows you, you can do no wrong. That's why it's remained the medium of choice for a number of former film folks, Aaron Sorkin and James L. Brooks among them. While each makes the occasional Oscar Nominated film, it's their television productions for which they'll be most remembered. There's an ever increasing number of show creators, producing some of the best entertainment to be seen anywhere that would be severely handicapped by the MPAA's rating system as it now exists. I can't imagine Seth MacFarlane, for example, getting saddled with anything less severe than an NC-17 for the material that he gets to show weekly on prime time, network television with Family Guy.
Which is probably why he doesn't make movies!
0 comments:
Post a Comment