Movies aimed at teenage girls bring box office bank
This weekend at the box office, “The Fault in Our Stars” brought in $48.2 million dollars.
It’s Hollywood’s latest movie adaptation of a book that appeals largely to young women.
It’s part of a string of successful movies aimed at this very demographic — The box-office success of Twilight, Hunger Games and Malificent shows the movie business is moving past its traditional audience (men aged 13 to 34) and found another, new way to make money.
“It’s like they looked under a rock and found this great big core audience that they didn’t know was there, which is young women,” says Sharon Waxman, CEO of The Wrap, which covers the business of Hollywood.
According to Waxman, instead of relying on broader appeal, studios are aiming for a stronger following with smaller slices of the audience; in this case, young women.
“Don’t forget that when you do that, you’re driving all kinds of other engagement,” Waxman says. “They come back and see the movie more than once … They’ll buy the DVD … If they ever do a theme park ride around it, they’ll go to that too.”
Kathryn Arnold, an independent film producer, says that movies based on books keep appearing because Hollywood is making a lot of money.
“They’re realizing that they can have more confidence to actually go ahead and make these kinds of movies for young girls because they’re proving themselves at the box office,” she says.
Though, Arnold says that while this may seem like a feel-good Hollywood moment, the trend will only last as long as ticket sales keep coming in.
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