What happened to grown-up films?

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cheap nike shoes 2012 cheap nike shoes When I was a child, most of the big hits in movie theaters were aimed at adults. Now that I’m an adult, most of the big hits in movie theaters are aimed at children. And that’s not middle-aged crankiness talking. (Well, not just middle-aged crankiness.) It’s also box-office numbers. Hollywood runs on a different calendar than the real world, and only the awarding of the Oscars tonight actually ends the movie year of 2011, artistically speaking. Financially speaking, the summing up was only recently published in Variety. And last year’s biggest hits are, in order: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2," "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1," "The Hangover Part II," "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," "Fast Five," "Cars 2," "Thor," "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "Captain America: The First Avenger." The "Potter" film was great fun. A couple of others were, well, okay. But really — these are the 10 biggest hits of the year? "You can’t find a single original movie on it," admits Paul Dergarabedian, hollywood.com’s box-office analyst. "They’re sequels, remakes or they’re setting us up for next year’s ‘The Avengers’ movie. … The box office is being driven by familiar themes, familiar characters." True enough — and although it’s particularly obvious now, it’s been true for years, to some extent. But take a look at what the box-office list used to look like. In 1971, for example, I was 12 and just getting seriously interested in films. And that was easy. Because back then, the top 10 domestic grossers were, in order: "Fiddler on the Roof," "The French Connection," "Summer of ’42," "Diamonds Are Forever," "Dirty Harry," "Carnal Knowledge," "A Clockwork Orange," "Klute," "The Last Picture Show" and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks." The contrast to today is pretty striking — and sad. In 2011, the top 10 movies included two films based on young-adult novels, two more based on toys or amusement-park rides, two superhero films, one sci-fi flick, one cartoon, one raunchy comedy and one over-the-top action picture. Nine of the films were built around action or special effects; not one was a drama. In 1971, however, you had a musical, and three gritty crime stories. You had a romance, two serious dramas, a dark political satire and a children’s movie. Only one film, a 007 flick, counted as a sequel. The vast majority of movies were made for adults. At least half are now considered to be classics. And they were still huge hits. "â‘Carnal Knowledge,’ ‘Clockwork Orange’ — the best movies were the most successful movies," director Steven Soderbergh says. "And that changed. That just doesn’t exist anymore." "Those were challenging movies," agrees David A. Gross, founder of the smart critique site MovieReviewIntelligence.com. "They were dramatic and interesting and we’re not seeing that anymore. … The idea of the serious studio drama, made for a wide audience — that genre’s in a tough place, now." transformers-3-dark-of-the-moon-whitty-movies.JPGJaimie Trueblood/© 2011 Paramount Pictures CorporationShia LaBeouf played Sam Witwicky in "Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon" from Paramount Pictures. The 'Transformers' movie was one of the top grossing movies of 2011. A pretty obscure place, too. Never mind the top 10 — go through last year’s top 50 and look for all the movies that didn’t depend on special effects, car chases or a dirty joke. There’s "The Help," at No. 11 — and then, toward the very bottom of the list, "Contagion," "Moneyball," "Water for Elephants" and "The Lincoln Lawyer." Five dramas. Five out of 50 films. So what happened? Why are today’s biggest hits often movies aimed at the easiest audience? Why has Hollywood practically given up on the kind of movies — "The Godfather," "Kramer Vs. Kramer," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest," "Ordinary People," "Chinatown" — that were both grown-up stories and popular favorites? Where did all the smart hits go? The answer began long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Because "Star Wars" proved that you could take what seemed like a kiddie matinee (funny robots and laser sabers!) and treat it like a real movie, and make real money. It proved you could use a new kind of marketing and distribution (saturation TV ads, huge releases) to get a new kind of mass audience (teens who would come multiple times, then buy the merchandise). It proved you didn’t need adults to have a huge hit. And eventually moguls realized you could apply those rules to all sorts of special-effects driven movies — not just the good ones. And they saw that, because those movies rarely had a lot of complicated dialogue, they did even better overseas. So by the ’90s, as markets opened up in once-Communist territories (or once-impoverished Third World countries), studios began catering to them by concentrating on action-crammed, no-subtitles-needed adventures. There’s a reason why big, dumb, loud movies like these now rule the top 10. And it’s because they’re the sort of movies that now rule every studio’s globally-conscious production slate. "I used to run international sales at Fox, and you’d make 40 percent of your money overseas," Gross says of the shift. "Now, it can be as much as 70 percent. … Countries like Russia, Brazil, China, their interest in our films is exploding, which can be great. "But China doesn’t give a damn about ‘The Social Network.’ What plays are good guys and bad guys and things that everybody can understand, like ‘Transformers.’â…" "It’s a global business now," agrees Dergarabedian. "And also, at home, we’re living in a world of video games, and the net, and that’s changed forever how people consume and view entertainment. I mean today, compared to ‘Fast Five,’ ‘The French Connection’ would be considered a post-modern, European-style thriller. … Adult dramas — well, I don’t think Hollywood’s ever going to stop making them. But they’re only going to make them at the right price." a-clockwork-orange-whitty-movies.JPGFile photoMalcolm McDowell in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, a top-grossing movie in 1971. And that consideration is the flip side of the big change. Because just as Hollywood long ago decided they could maximize profits by turning B-movie ideas into A-movie epics, they’ve slowly realized they can minimize risks by making A-movie ideas on B-movie budgets. So yes, they’ll still make a smart movie — but often only if everyone is willing to take a pay cut, trim the crowd scenes, forget the on-location filming and give up on any huge publicity campaign. The idea of a star-driven, serious story like "Out of Africa" or "Reds" or "All the President’s Men," however — let alone the intelligent, international epics David Lean used to undertake? Forget it. Unless there’s a hobbit involved, most studios aren’t interested in funding ambition. "Once you start to spend real money, they get worried," Kevin Kline confided to me last year. "A director told me the most excruciating note he’d ever gotten from a studio: He was pitching a project and the executive said, ‘These characters are far too complex for a budget this big.’â…" "One of the big studios actually put out the word, ‘We’re not doing any more dramas,’â…" John Sayles told me recently. "Dramas — you know, that’s a pretty big category to just write off! But what they’re saying is, drama is not a sure thing. It’s complicated, it’s risky, it’s not a product we know how to sell anymore." Of course, studios used to know how, before they got distracted by all the spandex and sci-fi. And, admitted, they’ll still make a serious film, particularly if they can get a big star attached (like Brad Pitt and "Moneyball"), or steer it toward their cheaper, leaner, "independent" — more like "co-dependent" — subsidiaries. The difference — and the problem — is that, only a decade or so ago, a movie like "The Descendants" would have come out from Fox, not its smaller sibling, Fox Searchlight. Instead of playing a few big-city dates, an uncompromisingly adult film like "Shame" would be — as "Carnal Knowledge" was — in unabashed wide release. Knowing that these movies could be difficult sells, the studios simply would have committed more time and money to selling them.