Published: November 5, 2024

Family-Friendly Movies Beat Star Power at the Box Office

By Movieguide® Contributor

HERE’s poor opening at the box office proves that even a well-known star like Tom Hanks can’t save an over-the-top movie when audiences want family-friendly content.

The film is ambitious in that the shooting takes place from the same camera angle until the end of the film. Moreover, in the story, Tom Hanks and his wife, played by Robin Wright, are aged and shrunken throughout the film thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, ranging from teenagers to eighty-somethings. But a strong plot does not support ambitious storytelling, leading to a flop at the box office.

“This is a weak opening ($5 million) for an original drama,” said David A. Gross, director of film consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. said Diversity. “For this type of story to work, it needs to make an emotional and strong connection. In this case, the audience is left unimpressed and there is not enough to recommend.”

More importantly, the film also contains content that no longer has a wide audience. Seven of this year’s top 10 movies so far are aimed at family audiences, while over-the-top and cloying movies continue to fall flat. HERE unfortunately fell into this trap and told an irreparable story. Part of Movieguide® review reader:

The problem is that HERE has a strong humanist and secular, perhaps even superficial, worldview. It focuses on the materialistic, everyday and psychological aspects of life rather than its purpose or meaning. Therefore, the film ignores or even neglects the spiritual or deeply philosophical and moral aspects of life. Thus, there are no truly uplifting, positive references to God, Jesus, or the Bible, but there are eight powerful curses that blaspheme God and Jesus. HERE also appears to have some politically correct elements. Therefore, the modern American seems to have negative views of capitalist life, police treatment of blacks, and race relations in America. It also has a politically correct feminist subtext, in which Richard’s wife Margaret and her spirit are stifled by Richard’s lack of ambition. She hates living in the same house with her family for years and not going anywhere, and eventually leaves him to explore the world and what it has to offer.

READ MORE: REVIEW HERE

As Hollywood continues to believe that extreme movies are the most successful, more and more examples continue to pile up showing that uplifting, family-friendly stories perform best, while stories that incorporate other elements often fall flat.

In recent years, films such as THE WILD ROBOT, WONKA, THE SUPER MARIO BROS have been released. MOVI and PUSS IN BOOT: THE LAST WISH, for example, have had great success appealing to family audiences.

READ MORE: THE HUGE SUCCESS OF WILD ROBOT PROVES THIS