A Graying, Growing Audience

Having heard I was at the Toronto Film Festival, a studio executive started grilling me about what filmmakers had the biggest buzz coming out of there. As the conversation wore on, it became apparent that he wasn’t interested in the filmmakers with the biggest buzz, he was interested only in the young filmmakers with the biggest buzz.

In Hollywood, the fountain of youth has become a bottomless pit. Studio executives throw money at Vin Diesel, Colin Farrell and any other hip young actor with star potential. Older actor take parts s only when they’re opposite women half their age so they can seem virile and youthful. Older actresses mutilate themselves with plastic surgery and still have trouble finding work. The media do their part too: When’s the last time you saw a magazine do a “Hot 50 Over 50” issue? Premiere magazine recently spotlighted 25 under-35 Hollywood hotties, while the cover of Vanity Fair’s 2001 Hollywood issue featured 10 “legendary” actresses, including the likes of Kate Winslet and Penelope Cruz, who, with all due respect, are a lo-o-o-ng way from legend status.

So imagine my surprise when I opened Variety last week and discovered, buried in a story about the lackluster late-summer box office grosses, that during the last 10 years, only one moviegoing age group had not shrunk or stagnated: moviegoers older than 50. According to a survey by the Motion Picture Assn. of America, between 1990 and 2000, moviegoers in the obsessively sought-after 16-20 age group had dropped from 20% to 17% of total viewers. Moviegoers in the 25-29 category dropped from 14% to 12%. Even 12- to 15-year-olds, who are supposed to be part of the biggest demographic bulge since baby boomers, dipped from 11% to 10%.

Meanwhile, moviegoers ages 50-59 didn’t just stay steady, they shot up from 5% to 10% of total audience. A second survey I found on the MPAA Web site, which interviewed frequent moviegoers, found that during the last four years, attendance of over-40 moviegoers was up as well.

For demographic researchers, these numbers are no surprise. Thanks to the graying of the baby boom generation, 38% of American adults are 50 or older, a number that will grow to 47% by 2020. More important, these older moviegoers behave very differently from their parents when it comes to entertainment. The baby boom generation remains loyal to its generation of film and rock stars--after all, who do you think goes to all those Eagles reunion concerts?

It’s no coincidence that the over-50 moviegoer numbers have suddenly started climbing as the boomer generation--whose oldest members are now 56--begins to make its presence felt. These boomers continue to be active moviegoers and culture consumers. One reason “Late Night With David Letterman” is such a hot ad buy is that his viewers (average age: 46.2) are a heavy moviegoing audience. Boomers are a generation of Peter Pans. They don’t berate their kids for listening to Eminem--they play his CD in their SUVs. Obsessive about exercising, always willing to spring for a nip ‘n’ tuck, their mantra is: Forever young.

As CBS research chief David Poltrack put it recently: “Marketers will tell you that the biggest market of opportunity is to help boomers fight the concept that they’re old. They’re going to fight aging all the way.”

Hollywood has been slow to seize the initiative. Movie marketers still tend to stereotype “older” moviegoers as white-haired retirees in golf shirts and plaid pants. But the leading edge of today’s older consumers, who came of age in the 1960s, are affluent and often eager to sample new cultural trends. They’ve certainly been an underappreciated force in the current movie season. The industry’s most astounding success story, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” is proving unstoppable ($124 million at the box office and still going strong), due in large part to the support of over-50 moviegoers. M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” has now out-grossed even “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” thanks to a strong turnout by older filmgoers. Older moviegoers have also made up a healthy chunk of the audience for “Road to Perdition,” another solid summer hit.

“The numbers are definitely there,” says MGM marketing chief Peter Adee, who was at Universal last year when the studio’s Oscar winner, “A Beautiful Mind,” rolled up huge box office numbers with the support of older moviegoers. “The more you think about it, it does seem like kind of a travesty. Why aren’t we making more movies geared to an older audience?”

In fact, there were lots of awkward silences when I phoned studio executives last week to ask: Why do you show the least amount of interest in the segment of your audience that is apparently growing the fastest? It all comes down to Hollywood’s relentless courtship of youth. The industry has become an opening-weekend business, and the audience that attends on opening weekend is the horde of teenagers primed for every new superhero action thriller and Adam Sandler comedy.

Of equal importance, kids are easier to hypnotize with a 30-second TV spot. Older audiences are more likely to wait and see if a movie gets good reviews or word-of-mouth. And because they have more things going on in their lives, they may wait until the fourth weekend to see a film, forcing studios to spend extra money to sustain their marketing campaign until the oldsters finally show up.

It’s a terrible curse. Older moviegoers are--gasp!--discerning. They actually can’t be tricked into seeing a clunker by an eye-catching trailer or TV spot. So most studios shy away from making films that have to be well-executed instead of easily marketed.

“When you make movies for older audiences, you have to make them better,” Columbia Pictures Chairman Amy Pascal says. “It’s sad but true, but it’s easier to make brand-name movies than good ones. When movies are good, like ‘American Beauty’ or ‘Insomnia,’ older audiences will go see them. But they want to see good reviews before they go.”

The economics of Hollywood make it a far bigger financial risk to woo older moviegoers. Older-skewing movies are more costly than teen comedies because they are customarily made by successful older stars and directors, whose salaries and work habits ensure that the film will carry a steep price tag. Stars like Robert Redford and Michael Douglas don’t come cheap, nor do directors like Sydney Pollack or Rob Reiner. “Signs” may be a success, but studio executives remember the pricey films aimed at older audiences that were expensive failures, including “The Horse Whisperer,” “Sabrina,” “Random Hearts” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance.”

“The math is so hard to support that it doesn’t leave a lot of room for error,” says Revolution Studios chief Joe Roth. “You need a good story to tell, you need good reviews and, because you need known actors and a known director, it means you’re going to be making a big-budget movie. So if it doesn’t work, it can be an expensive failure. And the risk-averse people who run Hollywood are in the business of avoiding expensive failures.”

There’s also a more hidden cultural component. Many studio production executives are in their 20s and 30s, making it unlikely that they would respond to stories geared to an older audience--i.e., their parents. They are rewarded for discovering cool new stars and filmmakers, not for finding material that might be right for Paul Newman or Clint Eastwood. If they’re going to take a risk, they’d rather gamble on something hip: In Hollywood, you brag that you’re in business with Spike Jonze or Wes Anderson, not Penny Marshall.

The media are just as guilty of ageism as the movie studios--everyone wants to discover the new It Girl. Kirsten Dunst and Reese Witherspoon grace magazine covers everywhere, but try to remember the last time you saw a cover featuring perennial Oscar contender Susan Sarandon, who’s in three movies this month. Still, older audiences have their supporters, like Screen Gems marketing chief Valerie Van Galder, who had great success reaching older moviegoers when she worked on the Fox Searchlight hit “Waking Ned Devine.”

“Nobody in Hollywood believes it,” she says. “But older moviegoers are the one audience that will really support you.”

The sad truth is that older audiences crave movies with substance, exactly the sort of movie Hollywood has few incentives to make today. When it comes to the over-50 crowd, the industry’s motto seems to be: Let them watch HBO.

“The people in our business should remember we’re all going to be older someday,” DreamWorks marketing chief Terry Press says. “And then we’ll be the ones complaining, ‘Why isn’t anyone making any movies for us?’ ”

*Los Angeles Times research librarian John Jackson contributed to this story.

“The Big Picture” runs every Tuesday in Calendar. If you have questions, ideas or criticism, e-mail them to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.