Last year (2005) there were 149 R-rated movies released, which accounted for 44 percent of all films released for the year. But they only generated 21 percent of the annual box office revenue.
For 2006, just under 39 percent of the major released movies resulted in an "R" rating. The percentage of the box office is just under last years 21 percent. Another significant statistic is that not one movie in the top ten for 2006 is R-rated.
It is also enlightening to look at Pixar, the only studio that has created consistent winners for years. Every single movie they've put out was for a family audience, a
nd has been wildly successful.
With the increasing pressure of Hollywood to gets its financial act together, it'll be interesting to see if they attempt to continue to offer so many R-rated losers. The very nature of being R-rated immediately cuts viewership be a huge margin.
The R-rated market hasn't increased for five years. The only exception was unique in that what many considered a somewhat family film, "The Passion of the Christ," increased the market shares of R-rated movies to 30 percent for 2003. That was an anomaly though, that will rarely, if ever, be repeated.
For Hollywood to be successful in the increasingly fragmented, cross-platform marketplace, they'll have to give serious consideration to the growth areas of the marketplace. That growth area is family film. From a financial way of looking at it, its financial insanity to ignore it and attempt to do business as usual.
Will the R-rated film go away? No. There will be exeptions to the rule, like everything else. The "Borat" and "Jackass: No. 2" movies were created with low budgets and brought in money for the studios. That's the bottom line with a lot of this. The making of huge, expensive movies, that have an R rating, will decrease in a huge way as they rarely bring back a return for investors. This particular genre will continually diminish.
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