AUDS TO HOLLYWOOD: MAKE US LAUGH AND CRY BUT PLEASE DON'T PREACH (NYT)

By Nancy Vialatte

Moviegoers sent a message to Hollywood this past year, says the New York Times, and the message was “No to message movies.”

(Audiences) showed no appetite for a critique of their eating habits in “Fast Food Nation.” They weren’t ready to fly along on “United 93,” no matter how skilled its exposé of homeland insecurity. They didn’t care to see combat or suffer its after-effects in “Flags of Our Fathers.” And even Leonardo DiCaprio couldn’t interest them in touring the ravaged Africa of “Blood Diamond.”

While Al Gore’s prophecies in “An Inconvenient Truth” produced a respectable $24 million for Paramount, it was the message-movie exception that proved the rule. The big money was to be made making people laugh, cry and squeeze their dates’ arms — not think.

In a summary of the state of the box-office for 2006, the NYT carries on to look at studio performance marked notably by a healthy serving of feel-good films.

“What worked was classic, get-away-from-it-all entertainment,” Paramount marketing and distribution chief Rob Moore tells the NYT, “What didn’t was things that were more challenging and esoteric.”

Over all, the top tier of the box office held its usual contours: 5 blockbusters exceeded $200 million, and 12 fell in the $100 million to $200 million zone. In addition, 39 exceeded $50 million, 7 more than in 2005. Total domestic box office reached $9.4 billion, a shade shy of the 2004 record but 5 percent more than in 2005, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media by Numbers, which tracks box office results. Attendance was up 3.3 percent.