50+ filmgoers fill the multiplex

By Sarah Sluis

This week, The New York Times pointed out that older moviegoers, who have long underrepresented themselves at the box office, are returning. During the last fifteen years, there's been a 67% increase in the number of 50+ moviegoers who report attending a movie in the past six months. Of all the reasons cited for this shift, the most important is content. Summer is seen as the season for "kid" movies, and many older viewers have more conservative standards and resent the "filth" they see on screen. The production code may not be coming back to keep sex, drugs, and violence in check, but this year's Oscar nominees and winners, in particular, highlight the kind of content that has strong appeal to older viewers.

The King's Speech, recently crowned Best Picture, was a film I knew immediately would appeal to those turned off by racy content in the theatres (in fact, it's being recut to a PG-13 by bleeping out its uses of the F-word). The movie has already crossed the $100 million mark, in large part thanks to those "once a year" moviegoers who will turn out doubly in light of the movie's Oscar win. The other nine movies nominated for an Academy Award all have appeal in the over-fifty range, even among the outliers: Inception was remarkably cerebral (unless that's code for confusing?) for a blockbuster, and Toy Story 3 drew plenty of adult audiences who know about Pixar's reputation for quality. Movies like True Grit and The Fighter, however, were the core, commercially successful and well-reviewed movies that drew in 50+ filmgoers.

The Times also draws attention to the atmosphere of a theatre--dirty cinemas with hordes of unruly teens can turn away older customers in a heartbeat. For an upcoming feature, I spoke with Skip Huston, owner of the Avon Theatre in Decatur, Illinois. His small theatre showed many of this year's Oscar films, including True Grit and Black Swan, to an older-skewing, more discerning audience. He has a staff that keeps the theatre spotless, popcorn that draws raves, and a historic "destination" cinema. Places like these show that older people will come to the theatre, if it has the right environment and a well-curated selection of films. If older filmgoers mean more adult movies and fewer dumb action films and comedies, please, fire away, but I suspect this means we're also going to be in for many more iterations of The Bucket List.