A Christian group that has long worked to help clean up edgy and sexualized content in Hollywood just came out with a new analysis of 2017 movie data that apparently yielded a shocking conclusion: sex and nudity don’t really sell all that well.
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Or, at the least, these themes don’t attract as much revenue.
Movieguide released just part of its analysis, which will be fully unveiled at the 26th Annual Faith and Values Awards Gala at Universal Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California, on Feb. 2.
This data explores top movies in the U.S. and Canada and proves that “American moviegoers reject movies with scenes of explicit sex and sexual nudity in them,” the organization said in a statement.
So, what’s this proclamation based on, you ask? The averages and totals of box office sales throughout last year.
The data found that the average box office for films with heavily depicted sex was $17.95 million compared to $46.39 for movies that had no sexual content. Films with “some depicted sex” landed in the middle with $15.95 million. And it doesn’t end there.
The total box office figures for 2017 reflected this same sentiment, with films with no sexual content bringing in a whopping $3.85 billion, compared to $1.15 billion when some sex is depicted and $.22 billion when heavy sex is depicted.
It’s not just sex, though; nudity, too, followed identical patterns, with the average box office revenue in 2017 for films with extreme sexual nudity coming in at $21.33 million and films with no sexual nudity yielding $42.10 million.
Ted Baehr, founder and publisher of Movieguide, noted that “previous studies have shown similar results.” You can see the full results and tables here.
It’s clear that movies that do contain sexual content bring in revenue, but it seems, at least based on this data, that films with less nudity and smut fare much better at the box office.