Universal Pictures
Kink
was down list of motivating factors cited by fans who drove record Presidents
Day box office, and so were the stars
Sex sells and “Fifty Shades of
Grey” had plenty of it, but that wasn’t the main reasons that moviegoers turned
out in record numbers and drove the biggest Presidents Day opening weekend in
box office history.
Story was the primary
motivation for nearly half (48 percent) of the respondents in Universal
Pictures’ exit polling conducted after weekend screenings of the R-rated
romance starring Jamie Dornan-Dakota Johnson. The survey was unscientific
and voting for multiple motivators was allowed, so the figures don’t add up to
one hundred.
Sexiness was a close second,
with 46 percent of the crowd indicating that the promise of big screen coupling
made them hot to buy a “Fifty Shades” ticket.
Romance (41 percent) and E.L. James’ Books (38 percent) followed.
The first figure had to please Universal’s marketers, who went to great pains
to sell the steamy saga as a love story, rather than glorified porn.
Emotion (25 percent), Drama
(26 percent), Music (17 percent) and the S&M Theme (15 percent) came next.
“Story” is a bit ambiguous,
but if you count that category and Books together, it is by far the
biggest reason crowds turned out. That supports conventional wisdom that
James’ trilogy, which has sold more than 100 million copies, provided the
movie with a huge built-in audience base.
The S&M figure seems a
little low, given that the popularity – and notoriety – of the “Fifty Shades”
books seemed to stem from its focus on its BDSM action.
But the kink scored better
than the stars. Jamie Dornan
and Dakota Johnson,
who play Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in the film, were cited by just 12
percent and nine percent of the respondents as prime motivators.
The young
actors shouldn’t be too disappointed. After all, the polling was
unscientific. And despite what they claimed leaving theaters, do we really
think it was the story that brought moviegoers out for the steamy love
story?
THE WRAP Movies | By Todd Cunningham
on February 16, 2015 @ 2:18 pm
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