For film studio execs, the Holy Grail is the four-quadrant film.  Prospective audience members are divided into four groups (young men, young women, older men, older women), and every once in a while, a film like Avatar comes along to attract viewers from every demographic and therefore make obscene amounts of money.

But James Cameron films aside, it’s hard to make a movie that everyone in the world wants to see.  Because of this, there’s another piece of conventional film industry wisdom: if you want to make a blockbuster, aim for younger men.  The idea behind this is that young women are much more likely to tag along to whichever new action/superhero/explosion porn film their boyfriend or husband wants to see than young men are to sit through a movie specifically aimed at women.

If you look at the highest grossing films of the last decade, this seems to be true.  Superhero movies, like The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3, and other action franchises, like Transformers and Star Wars, are the ones setting the records.  And while there are certainly many women and girls who love these movies, comic book and action/adventure plots are the stuff of traditional masculine fantasies.  The really big movies are made for the boys.

The industry is surprised, then, when women and girls show off their purchasing power.  When Sex and the City debuted in 2008 and broke a few box office records of its own, critics were shocked, even though it was a very well-publicized film based on a hugely popular and culturally significant TV show.  The LA Times found the film’s $57 million opening “surprising.”  Entertainment Weekly called it “stunning.”  The New York Times labeled it “an unconventional hit” powered by “its legion of female fans.”  Apparently it could in no way have been predicted that large amounts of women would go to see a movie that was made for them.

But while Sex and the City set records for the highest grossing romantic comedy of all time and the highest grossing film with all female leads, the Twilight franchise is playing with the big boys.  Last November, New Moon delivered the third biggest domestic opening weekend of all time, right behind The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3.

Whatever else you can say about Twilight, and I’ll say plenty in the weeks to come, there’s no denying that it shows off the potential of the female market like nothing before.  The success of a film like New Moon, which is based around feminine fantasies like eternal true love and beautiful but dangerous men rather than masculine dreams like fighting robots and hot girls who fall for science geeks, might push studios to start channeling more money and resources into serving female audiences. And that is progress.

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    Last reviewed: 6 Feb 2010