Summer’s ignored movie audience — older women
The films on the list of wannabe blockbusters opening this summer have one thing in common: They’re aimed primarily at young men. From new installments in Marvel comic book franchises to flashy action pictures led by stars like Tom Cruise, Dwayne Johnson and Denzel Washington, every movie hopes to draw the lucrative “four quadrant” crowd — but at the very least, dudes.
And yet, in between the big-budget sci-fi and superhero sagas, two major studio releases targeting the adult female crowd will hit the multiplex this season: “Book Club” and “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!”
The first, out Friday, features four actresses older than 60 as its leads: Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, playing friends who are inspired to reinvigorate their lives after reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
The July 20 “Mamma Mia!” sequel, meanwhile, is hoping to match the success of the 2008 musical adaptation, which grossed more than $600 million worldwide when it opened.
Like “Book Club,” the new “Mamma Mia!” also stars a handful of older actors, including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Cher and Colin Firth.
Summer has long been considered a dry period for films for the over-40 set — especially older women.
In 2011, “The Help” soared to nearly $170 million, largely on the strength of women who loved Kathryn Stockett’s book of the same name.
But despite the handful of modest successes that followed — “Hundred-Foot Journey,” “Hope Springs” — in the last five years, there have been only a few summer releases made for the demographic. Many such releases with older stars, including “Florence Foster Jenkins,” “A Walk in the Woods” and “Ricki and the Flash,” weren’t even able to crack $30 million.
Signing on for “Book Club” was an easy call for Bergen, who said she was stunned to be offered the role without “any humiliation, no audition (and) no haggling.”
“It’s rare to get an offer at all at my age,” acknowledged the 71-yearold actress. “And I think it’s so smart that they’re opening the film in the summer. Women are way underserved in the market, and I feel such a buzz from women of all ages over this — of course, older women, because nobody makes movies for them. I’m quite taken aback.”
“Book Club” producer and cowriter Erin Simms said it wasn’t easy to get studios interested in the film — it was financed independently and later acquired for distribution by Paramount.
“We had to convince people every step of the way,” she said. “In general, people were looking at this as a very small, very niche movie. You think back to ‘The Golden Girls,’ which was a massive hit, or ‘Steel Magnolias’ and ‘Terms of Endearment’ — I don’t know what happened over time that financiers stopped being interested. You feel like because studios keep forgetting that demographic, they don’t matter anymore, but they do — and they’re powerful and still have a lot of life to live.
“You hit a certain age and start feeling like you aren’t important anymore. I hope this movie helps to erase that idea,” Simms added. “We glorify youth in society, and I don’t know why everyone is trying to find the next-best-thing. I’d rather sit down with someone and hear about a life well-lived.”