I always heard that the reason there weren’t more family-friendly movies out there was because sex and violence sell and mamby-pamby G-rated flicks are big money losers.

But now there’s a new report out by the Dove Foundation called Profitability Study of MPAA-Rated Movies, and their findings are fascinating. I encourage you to click the link and check out the whole report (it’s only 12 pages), but here’s the bottom line:

While the movie industry produced nearly 12 times more R-rated films than G-rated from 1989 – 2003 (1,533 and 123 respectively), the average G-rated film produced 11 times greater profit than its R-rated counterpart ($78,982,000 and $6,939,000 respectively).

G-rated films also produced an average rate of return on investment (ROI) three times greater than R-rated films (94.5% vs. 28.7%).

Between 2000 and 2003, Hollywood produced nearly four times as many PG-13 films as PG (75 vs. 21). During that same time, the average PG film produced $33 million greater profit than a PG-13 film ($78.8 million vs. $45.6 million).

G-rated films were identified overall as most lucrative in all of the following categories:

-Net profit per film
-Theatrical box office per film
-Video revenue per film
-Rate of return per film

Films with a PG rating consistently report higher profits and rates of return than PG-13 and R-rated films.

So, it appears the conventional wisdom is off-target. If it’s all about the money, the theaters should be flooded with G- and PG-rated fare. So one wonders, why aren’t there more family-friendly movies?

Hi everyone — sorry I haven’t been around lately. I just peeked out of my bomb shelter today after being holed up since last night’s council meeting. You can understand why. Listening to Chuck Grayeb talk about what would happen if the city didn’t buy the water company had me scared nearly to death. I was expecting the evil German IAWC troops to be at my door any minute, forcing filthy water down my family’s throats and robbing us of all our worldly possessions while the ICC looked on with approval. When the due diligence measure went down to defeat, I knew I had to act fast. I got all the bottled water I could find (Evian, bottled in France, ironically) and headed into the bunker. Surely, I thought, Armageddon was soon to start.

Imagine my surprise when I found out the sun still came out today! And, I’ll be darned if I didn’t hear birds singing. I looked out the window and there were even children playing! We were still able to wash our dishes and do our laundry just like always. Things didn’t seem to change at all, actually. How did this happen?

Okay, enough snide comments. I’m not celebrating much because I know it’s all coming up again (like a bad lunch) in a few short years. Water-buyout advocates won’t let this little setback stop them. Start preparing now for Water Buyout ’07.