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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060524/asp/calcutta/story_6259659.asp
Secret to a summer success
Hollywoods hot formula is to target the child in the adult and the adult in the child
A poster of M. Night Shyamalans forthcoming Lady in the Water; (right) Brandon Routh in Superman Returns
As he puts the finishing touches on Superman Returns, director Bryan Singer is thinking about bathrooms. During a screening of one of the Lord of the Rings movies, Singer noticed how many kids in the audience made a mad dash for the bathrooms during bits of dialogue-heavy exposition.
It was like a stampede, he said. A little while later, during one of the movies prolonged battle sequences, he noticed adults making a similar exodus. Singer predicts a similar shuffling when his Superman lands in theatres on June 30. Id like to think this movie is entirely universal, he said. But I know there will be bathroom moments for the kids and bathroom moments for adults.
Such is the strange dynamic faced by film-makers during what has become the most demographically challenging part of the annual film calendar those supposedly carefree months from early May to Labour Day.
In summer, big studios place their heaviest bets and the season has become the preserve of films made for neither the old nor the young, but rather for the child in the adult and the adult in the child.
Within Hollywood, the current jargon says a summer blockbuster should play in all four quadrants across the age spectrum. Theres got to be something for everybody, explained Jeff Blake, vice-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
More striking, though, is the degree to which summer films like this years X-Men 3 or Singers Superman Returns seem increasingly to define a new kind of cultural space, in which traditional notions about age mean little.
With the production of summer movies turned into a maddening demographic exercise, film-makers chase an audience that is in the process of redefining itself. The most successful examples Pirates of the Caribbean, Napoleon Dynamite or the movie that basically invented the form, Star Wars strike an exceedingly delicate balance, Singer said. Veer too far into potty humour or frenetic action, and you bore the adults; linger too long in character development or broad themes, and you alienate the children.
To play across the age divide, some film-makers adopt the strategy perfected by the creators of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons, packing their pictures with in-jokes and asides they know will hit home with grown-ups even if they mystify kids.
Others, however, reject that approach, like M. Night Shyamalan, who calls it bifurcation. Instead of tossing out lines that appeal to either one group or another, he seeks to inject deeply adult themes into stories that otherwise seem of interest only to children. Thus his Lady in the Water, set for release on July 21, and billed as a bedtime story, is being positioned as a sort of romper-room version of the dark, supernatural thrillers he is famous for.
In a similar vein The Ant Bully, set for release by Warner Brothers in early August, features a cast of insects voiced by Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep.
Studio executives are well aware that the difference between a successful childrens movie and a successful childrens movie that adults also enjoy is the difference between a hit and a bonafide blockbuster. Movies like the first Spider-Man may have appealed to kids primarily, but according to Sony exit polls, 52 per cent of the audience was over 25.
More generally, the highest grossing films of the modern era Star Wars, Shrek 2, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is largely a catalogue of kid-adult hybrids, notwithstanding the occasional success of a Titanic or The Passion of the Christ (or the decision by Sony Pictures this year to buck the trend by releasing The Da Vinci Code as a summer film).
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Secret to a summer success
Hollywoods hot formula is to target the child in the adult and the adult in the child
A poster of M. Night Shyamalans forthcoming Lady in the Water; (right) Brandon Routh in Superman Returns
As he puts the finishing touches on Superman Returns, director Bryan Singer is thinking about bathrooms. During a screening of one of the Lord of the Rings movies, Singer noticed how many kids in the audience made a mad dash for the bathrooms during bits of dialogue-heavy exposition.
It was like a stampede, he said. A little while later, during one of the movies prolonged battle sequences, he noticed adults making a similar exodus. Singer predicts a similar shuffling when his Superman lands in theatres on June 30. Id like to think this movie is entirely universal, he said. But I know there will be bathroom moments for the kids and bathroom moments for adults.
Such is the strange dynamic faced by film-makers during what has become the most demographically challenging part of the annual film calendar those supposedly carefree months from early May to Labour Day.
In summer, big studios place their heaviest bets and the season has become the preserve of films made for neither the old nor the young, but rather for the child in the adult and the adult in the child.
Within Hollywood, the current jargon says a summer blockbuster should play in all four quadrants across the age spectrum. Theres got to be something for everybody, explained Jeff Blake, vice-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
More striking, though, is the degree to which summer films like this years X-Men 3 or Singers Superman Returns seem increasingly to define a new kind of cultural space, in which traditional notions about age mean little.
With the production of summer movies turned into a maddening demographic exercise, film-makers chase an audience that is in the process of redefining itself. The most successful examples Pirates of the Caribbean, Napoleon Dynamite or the movie that basically invented the form, Star Wars strike an exceedingly delicate balance, Singer said. Veer too far into potty humour or frenetic action, and you bore the adults; linger too long in character development or broad themes, and you alienate the children.
To play across the age divide, some film-makers adopt the strategy perfected by the creators of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons, packing their pictures with in-jokes and asides they know will hit home with grown-ups even if they mystify kids.
Others, however, reject that approach, like M. Night Shyamalan, who calls it bifurcation. Instead of tossing out lines that appeal to either one group or another, he seeks to inject deeply adult themes into stories that otherwise seem of interest only to children. Thus his Lady in the Water, set for release on July 21, and billed as a bedtime story, is being positioned as a sort of romper-room version of the dark, supernatural thrillers he is famous for.
In a similar vein The Ant Bully, set for release by Warner Brothers in early August, features a cast of insects voiced by Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep.
Studio executives are well aware that the difference between a successful childrens movie and a successful childrens movie that adults also enjoy is the difference between a hit and a bonafide blockbuster. Movies like the first Spider-Man may have appealed to kids primarily, but according to Sony exit polls, 52 per cent of the audience was over 25.
More generally, the highest grossing films of the modern era Star Wars, Shrek 2, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is largely a catalogue of kid-adult hybrids, notwithstanding the occasional success of a Titanic or The Passion of the Christ (or the decision by Sony Pictures this year to buck the trend by releasing The Da Vinci Code as a summer film).
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
