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07.23.2010 | By Jack Rico |
TheWrap.com’s editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman had a chance to sit for a big in-depth interview with Sony Pictures Entertainment co-Chairman Amy Pascal about the business of movies. In the middle of the interview, Ms. Waxman asked Pascal about Hispanic movie audiences. Below is the excerpt and I couldn’t agree more with it!
Sharon Waxman: Let’s take a step back and look at the movie landscape. Is the 13-year-old to whatever it is 24-year-old boy still your central focus in the movie industry?
Amy Pascal: Well, it depends on the movie that you’re making and what you’re looking for. The opening weekend is now made up of an ethnically rich population, not just the 13-year-old boys. The Latino audience has become huge for movies as they have become a bigger part of the population. I don’t think we just rely on that 13- to 18-year-old boy as the only way to make a hit.
SW: When you’re talking about the Hispanic audience, are we talking about adolescent boys, or families?
AP: They are a big component in the success of family movies. With movies costing what they do, you can’t rely on any one demographic unless you’re making a very targeted movie. When you’re making “Pineapple Express” or “Get Him to The Greek” or whatever.
SW: But you’re not still thinking about that when you look at your slate, X number of tentpoles in a year.
AP: If you’re making a tentpole movie, you’d better make sure that you don’t have one demographic. You’ve gotta have general audience movies for everybody — national, domestic, young, old, everything.
SW: With greater ethnic diversity among moviegoers, does that mean you’re thinking about making more movies that will appeal to that audience?
AP: No, I wouldn’t do it that way. I think you make movies about authentic human experiences and then people find themselves in it. I would never segment movies that way.
SW: But I would think that that would be a logical thing to do, although I have noted that Hollywood has tried over the past 10 years and they have not been particularly successful when they tried to do niche movies.
AP: I really think people go to movies where they can recognize humanity and characters they relate to, and I think segmenting a movie for a certain demographic is not good to do.
Amy Pascal, Co-President of Sony Pictures
To read the whole interview, click here.
