Hollywood’s Message to Red States: Our Movies Are for You

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Trend spotting in cinema is a hazardous pursuit. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. “Twisters,” however, is emblematic of a clear shift in Hollywood: After a period of openly using movies to display progressive values, sometimes with success at the box office (“Barbie”) and often not (“Strange World,” “The Marvels,” “The Color Purple,” “Dark Waters”), studios seem to be heeding a message that many ticket buyers — especially in the center of the country — have been sending for a long time: We just want to be entertained, no homework attached.

Put bluntly, it amounts to an attempt by Hollywood to bend to red state audiences.

“It’s a reflection of economics and the desperation of the film industry,” said Corby Pons, a movie marketer who focuses on the faith community and is based in Nashville. “We want you to attend our movies. We need you to attend our movies.”

Disney, which owns seven studios, including Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 20th Century, has put its creative ranks on notice. “We have to entertain first — it’s not about messages,” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said at a conference late last year. “I don’t really want to tolerate the opposite.”

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Paramount describes its current focus as “all-audience, flat-out entertaining films.” Those include “Gladiator II,” one of the most-anticipated movies of the fall. “Many moviegoers don’t want agendas or Hollywood telling them what they should be thinking,” said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution. He cited “IF,” a feel-good PG movie that came out in May about a girl with imaginary friends, as one that “resonated strongly” with ticket buyers in the heartland.

Universal’s approach to “Twisters” involved positioning the movie as escapist fun and studiously avoiding sociopolitical issues. The last thing Universal wanted was a film that doubled as a climate-change scolding, which would likely repel conservative ticket buyers. “We couldn’t afford to overlook any audience,” said Michael Moses, chief marketing officer at Universal. “With every decision, it was about how can we include and not exclude.”

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