Great article in the New York Times….
I fear I am now part of this “older” audience, whether I like it or not, but I hope Hollywood is rethinking their products.
We love to go to the movies, but there is often nothing to go see. Then they dump all the good movies at one time, at the end of the year, for Oscar consideration and we end up missing some we would love to have seen.
I the movie moguls will take this to heart and release more quality films throughout the year.
Then maybe the theaters will clean their floors and offer decent concessions we might consider buying…
LOS ANGELES — Hollywood and older Americans have never had much use for each other. The 50-plus crowd doesn’t go to opening weekends or buy popcorn; a youth-obsessed Hollywood has happily ignored them.
But in the last few months an older audience has made a startling reassertion of its multiplex power. “True Grit,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Fighter,” “Black Swan” — all movies in contention for a clutch of Oscars on Sunday — have all been surprise hits at the box office.
And they have all been powered by people for whom 3-D means wearing glasses over glasses, and “Twilight” sounds vaguely threatening.
Hollywood, slower than almost any other industry to market to baby boomers, may be getting a glimpse of its graying future. While the percentage of moviegoers in the older population remains relatively small, the actual number of older moviegoers is growing explosively — up 67 percent since 1995, according to GfK MRI, a media research firm.
And the first of the 78 million baby boomers are hitting retirement age with some leisure hours to fill and a long-dormant love affair with movies.
“There is an older audience that is growing, and it’s an underserved audience, which makes for an obvious and important opportunity,” said Nancy Utley, co-president of Fox Searchlight, whose “Black Swan” has sold over $100 million at the North American box office. If the core audience for a particular film is over 50, she noted, “that’s now a gigantic core.”
There are glimmers of a shift. Aging action stars; theaters with adult fare, like better food; reserved seating; and, most important, movies like “The Social Network” and “The King’s Speech” that have become hits based on wit and storytelling, not special effects.
Theaters have long favored younger consumers in part because older moviegoers tend to skip the concession counter, where theaters make most of their money. The imbalance between young and old grew more pronounced over the last decade as theater chains, suffering the after-effects of overbuilding, cut back on maintenance.
Much More: Older Audience Makes Its Presence Known at the Movies – NYTimes.com.
Lost in the 21st Century 