R-rated films fail to make list of top 20 movies of '02

By Andy Seiler
USA Today

LAS VEGAS — Last year was a record-breaker at the movies, both in ticket sales and attendance. And, for the first time, R-rated fare is clearly "out."

Of the top 20 films released in 2002, not one was rated R. ("8 Mile", the Eminem movie, just missed at 21.)

"Family product sells and R-rated product does not," said John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theatre Owners, last week at ShoWest, the industry's largest trade show for theater operators.

"For theater operators, particularly those that operate in the middle of America, this is a very important part of our success," Fithian says. "Over and over again, we say that there are too many R-rated pictures made based on what they can generate in box office."

The core moviegoing audience is one reason. According to statistics released by the Motion Picture Association of America:

• Ages 12 to 29 comprise some 50 percent of admissions.
• 30 to 49 account for 32 percent.
• 50 and older, 17 percent.

That 12-to-29 group has MPAA president Jack Valenti very vexed.

College students, in particular, are using the high-speed capabilities of their school's Internet systems not only to download free music but also free movies, representing a "menace" to the future of the movie business.

"I've spoken now at a number of universities," Valenti says, where he has urged students to stop downloading movies and universities to enforce bans on the practice. "This is more than just an economic problem or a legal problem or a Constitutional problem. It is a moral problem. ... If you have young kids 18 to 23 making sure that moral compact is in a state of decay, then this country is in pretty sad shape."

The answer for the industry, he says, will be encrypting a movie from the very start, preventing copies from being made.

"I'm absolutely, sublimely confident we can do it."