“So we” — corporate Hollywood,

“So we” — corporate Hollywood, she means — “can’t put a bad blockbuster over anymore, as in the golden era of 2002, when The Scorpion King could open at $36 million, or Blade II at $33 million. And we have to kill our singular addiction to teenage boys. We need to diversify the meaning of ‘our audience.’ We have a few audiences. Baby-boomers have a movie habit and an IV hooked up to pop culture (look at Inside Man or The Interpreter ). You would have thought that Something’s Gotta Give proved that older women were worth making movies for, but one strike with In Her Shoes and we’re out. Young girls, reliable last year, have been rationalized off the screen (their tastes this year considered to be entirely driven by boys). And then there√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢√É‚Äû√ɬ¥s the need to wean ourselves from other old habits and scapegoats. It’s the movie, stupid. Not the marketing. (Alhough marketers…can still kill a good picture.) We all have to go with our gut instincts, give up the fantasy of a formula. It√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢√É‚Äû√ɬ¥s harder, but not impossible.” — Lynda Obst, “We Lost It At The Movies,” New York magazine.

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