Adults Also Permitted

For the past decade movie-theater queues have resembled waiting lines at a sock hop. Teenagers stormed the box office, and Hollywood cloned films in their image. Their favorite genres -- sci-fi fantasies, peekaboo sex farces, gross-out horror movies -- multiplied on the screen, and sequel followed sequel followed sequel. Who needed adults? Those forgotten creatures stayed home with their TV movies and VCRs. For them the local multiplex was a teenagers' tree house bearing the sign GROWNUPS STAY OUT!

Now one can see a bend in the trend. Last year movie attendance by those 40 and older rose 56% over the 1986 figures, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The teen bloc, which still accounts for a hefty portion of the moviegoing universe, is losing the demographic race to yuppies and their elders. Having been tantalized by rented videos, adults are rediscovering the pleasures of moviegoing. Just ask Sidney Ganis, president of worldwide marketing for Paramount, which, spearheaded by such adult hits as The Untouchables and Fatal Attraction, was 1987's top studio. "Older audiences," Ganis says, "now know it's safe to go back to the movies."

They are going back because Hollywood is making movies for them. Not one of 1987's top ten hits was aimed primarily at the youth market. Nor are films with brand names for teens guaranteed success: John Hughes' youth parables have lost some of their box-office luster, and the four films produced last year by Steven Spielberg were financial fizzles. Says MPAA President Jack Valenti: "The movie world no longer need be girdled round by boundaries set $ by the very young." Which is not to say that movies are better than ever -- only that, for the moment, Porky's is passe, and old is gold.