"In a world where kids are increasingly ensconced with some device and they disappear into their Facebooks and text messages, a family movie is a great way to share something together," said James Steyer, founder and chief executive of Common Sense Media, an online media guide for parents.
And the box-office activity those films generate is not lost on Hollywood. Over the last five years, more than half of the top 10 annual highest-grossing movies were directed at the family audience, according to Media by Numbers.
The definition of "family movie" has broadened in recent years beyond the traditional G-rated picture to include edgier fare such as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Harry Potter." At the same time, what parents consider an appropriate movie for their kids can be highly variable.
" 'Family movies' is a broad term," said Ted Baehr, founder of Movieguide, which reviews movies according to "Christian and traditional family values." "It's good that studios are aiming to make more family movies, but parents have to take the responsibility" to know what's in them because official movie ratings are not always indicative, he said.
Baehr's organization has tracked the growth in family movies since it was launched in 1985. At that time, only 6% of the films released could be categorized as "aimed at families." Today, Movieguide estimates, it is 40%. "It's the biggest audience," Baehr said.
Sony, however, despite its box-office success and pioneering digital animation in "Stuart Little" nearly a decade ago, has largely ceded the family market to such rivals as Disney, 20th Century Fox, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation.
"Are we a little late to the party? Yes," said Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton. "But does that preclude us from participating? No. We don't want to be the Walt Disney Co., but this is another area of focus for us, and we've allocated significant resources to it."
An I-could-have-had-a-V-8 moment for Sony occurred last year with "Alvin and the Chipmunks," which cost $70 million to make and grossed $360.5 million in worldwide ticket sales. Pascal said the Fox hit prompted her to think Sony should take fuller advantage of two in-house divisions, Sony Imageworks and Sony Animation, to produce similar hybrids of live action and animation.
