European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 14, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Will Hollywood Stop ignoring women Paramount Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore Star with whoopee Goldberg in the Surprise hit a ghost a Dottie Enrico new Day women Are big spenders at the Box office. So what is Hollywood going to do about it its Tough to get Hollywood movie executives to discuss marketing especially targeted to women. In the past decade they be been Able to draw audiences to the Box office with a repertoire of a a my words a magic mischief and Macho. The fact is that the two top grossing films of 1990 so far a pretty woman and ghost a Are works that belong to the movie genre dubbed a a women a  this is posing an interesting question for those who produce appear in and sell movies. Can America expect a rash of movies Over the next few years featuring subjects that might traditionally Appeal to women or will Hollywood continue to largely ignore women As a financially viable target audience a a in a be surprised if you could get any studio executive to Tell you that they re going to Start making More films for and about women a said Anne Thompson who writes a regular marketing column for variety a film Trade publication. Thompson chalks this up to the fact that by and Large the movie Biz is still fuelled by a male audience. A Young men can be counted on to show up in Large numbers for the opening weekend of a rambo or die hard a said Thompson. A a it a a widely held belief in Hollywood that its harder to draw a female  Steve Frankfurt chairman of Frankfurt Gips Balkind a new York and Agency that specializes in movie marketing says sexism has nothing to do with it. A studio executives like any other Good businessmen Are not about to ignore a segment of the marketplace that is spending Money. To say it has something to do with sexism is  what is stirring the debate is the unexpected Box office successes of pretty woman a romantic fantasy ghost a romantic thriller and the newly released postcards from the Edge a Mother daughter Story. Industry experts estimate that More than 50 percent of the audiences for those three movies were women. Pretty woman has sold More than $172 million in tickets. Ghost has brought in almost $150 million. Postcards has racked up $19 million in just two weeks. Those numbers Are particularly impressive when measured against Macho movie counterparts. Male targeted thrillers such As die hard 2, which has earned $112 million in sales and total recall with sales of $117 million were almost twice As expensive to produce so profits Are even smaller. A the common belief has been that female stars just done to have the Power at the Box office that male stars do a said Richard Brown a film professor at Manhattan a new school. A the last time you really saw films that were sold to women and starred women was Back in the �?T40s, with Joan Crawford Bette Davis and Katharine  one of the other factors that studios take into account when they re producing pictures is How Well the movies will do internationally. A a it a often hard to sell Romance and humor overseas a said a marketing executive at a major studio. A unfortunately women Are often the headliners in these types of pictures. Very few Rock Mem sock Mem Type movies Star  if any moviegoer has been ignored studio executives say it is the older woman. A in the past younger adults and teens accounted for the majority of moviegoers. Now that older adults Are showing that they Are continuing to go to the movies in Force we Are in the process of refining and redefining our target audience a said Barry London president of Paramount a motion picture group the company that distributed ghost. According to a study done by the motion picture association of America last year moviegoers Over the age of 40 accounted for 33 percent of total audience share compared with 25 percent five years ago. The number of Young people in movie houses has dipped from 67 percent of the total audience in 1984 to 60 percent in 1989. Changing demographics have not Only forced the major film distributors to examine which movies they will produce but they have forced the distributors to adopt More sophisticated marketing methods. A the movie Industry is one of the last industries to adopt target marketing a said Caroline Jones the founder of Caroline Jones advertising. A a they be always gotten along using a mass merchandising approach. A but a the problem with some kinds of target marketing is that movie production schedules done to give us enough Lead time a Frankfurt said. A if you re going to advertise in a women a Magazine you be got to have work ready three months before a picture  some in the Industry also argue that women often have been ignored As a target Market because As Consumers they Are slower to go to the Box office. A women have a tendency to do a Quality Check first. They respond to Good reviews word of Mouth and wont necessarily Rush to the Box office just because Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the picture a said one studio executive. A a it a a More subjective Call and often Tough to  october 14, 1990 sunday to plus c Page 5