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'Princess' takes curse off G rating
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: USA Today
Date: August 8, 2001
By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY
The Princess Diaries didn't just collect the second-highest opening for a live-action G-rated movie with $22.9 million, topped only by 101 Dalmatians' $33.5 million in 1996. It has the potential to gross $70 million or more,the best performance for a live-action G not about spotted dogs. Diaries, about an awkward teen girl (Anne Hathaway) tutored in royal ways by her queen grandmother (Julie Andrews), has broken the curse of the G. Studios have avoided non-animated G fare since 1995, when Warner Bros.' praised A Little Princess turned pauper with only $10 million.
Even director Garry Marshall was a bit nervous about doing a G, virgin territory for the Pretty Woman man. "They seem to have gotten a bad rep. When I used to take my daughters to them, they weren't so good. Parents dozed off."
Not this time. "Disney cracked the code of how to market a G-rated film," says Tom Borys of box office tracker ACNielsen EDI.
Given that most movies this summer have been PG-13 or R and Diaries is the only G, it's as if a demure one-piece suit has made a splash in a pool full of thong bi kinis. Diaries' success even surprised the studio, since most experts predicted an opening of only $14 million or so for the modest $35 million-budgeted effort.
Says Nina Jacobson, head of the Walt Disney Picture Group: "People have been looking at G as excluding groups rather than being inclusive. But this really was for general audiences. It has broad appeal."
About 65% of moviegoers for Diaries were female and 60% were families. No surprise there. But about 25% of the crowd were teenagers, the ones who usually dismiss G-rated films as baby stuff.
How Disney erased the stigma:
Hide the G, push the jokes. "They created a great marketing campaign," says Paul Dergarabedian of box office firm Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. "Young women, older women, kids found the trailer funny, and no one cared about the rating." Jacobson says that was the intent. "It reads more like a good comedy than a kid movie."
Teen bait. The plot centers on high-schoolers, not a small child. Says Borys, "Younger audiences like to look ahead to the same-age time frame. It's uncool for teens to look back."
A spoonful of Julie. The return of Andrews, Mary Poppins herself, to the Disney fold after 37 years turned Diaries into an event picture for those of a certain age. Says Jacobson, "When she comes down the stairway, audiences give a little gasp. They want to share her with their kids."
Whether all studios will embrace the G remains to be seen. But Disney is planning a sequel, with Hathaway likely to return. The real test of Diaries' durability is this weekend: A faceoff with R-rated, teen-oriented American Pie 2.
Jacobson is optimistic. "The youth audience is pretty saturated on the gross-out factor, and it's refreshing to have an alternative."
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