Don’t Tell The Ladies of Nine That Sex Doesn’t Sell
Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 24, 2009
Earlier this week I followed a link over on Movieline that led to a study by Miller-McCune about the effect that nudity and sex in movies has on the box office. The overwhelming conclusion of the study is that over the past decade or so, instances of bare breasts in films has not had any positive effect on a film’s financial success. It makes sense, as it is not literally the sex that sells a movie, but more the inference of sex combined with an accessible MPAA rating. The low-cut shirt wearing Megan Fox running around in slo-mo in the PG-13 Transformers 2. That is what sells, not the sex.
Which leads us to one of three newly released posters for the upcoming Rob Marshall directed musical Nine, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and several sexy ladies (in this case, Fergie, Penelope Cruz and Kate Hudson). This film, which has received a PG-13 rating for “sexual content and smoking” is set to be one of the sexier movies of the year — and based on the rating, it won’t have one bare breast in its two-hour runtime. That won’t stop it from unleashing the lingerie and drawing in an demographic that would otherwise not be interested in a musical — namely men in the 18-35 age range. So how about it, key marketing demo, is this poster working for you?
Nine is in theaters December 18, 2009. Poster courtesy of The Hitlist.
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