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PG GONE MAD

Kid-friendly films are the backbone of the box office these days

“Moana 2” and “Wicked” might just be enough for PG movies to outearn PG-13 movies for the first year on record.

12/6/24 6:07AM

Six months on from when “Inside Out 2” was breaking all the records and being hailed as the savior of the 2024 box office, it seems that showing family-friendly films is still the surest way to pack a movie theater out, as “Wicked” and “Moana 2” help PG-rated movies soar to their best box-office performance in almost 30 years.

So far this year, PG-rated movies have accounted for just over a third of domestic box-office ticket sales, according to data from The Numbers. That’s the highest share of the market they’ve occupied since 1995 (as far back as the box-office analysis site’s figures go).

“PG,” as a Comscore senior analyst told Axios recently, “is the new PG-13.” It’s also, essentially, the new “G” — a rating that has mostly gone extinct at the US box office, as moviemakers aim to pull off the oh-so-lucrative combo of appealing to both kids and adults, a feat that generally requires a little more daring than what’s allowed in “G.” That audience, the preschool generation, is now increasingly catered for at home via streaming services.

The plot sweet spot

When the Motion Picture Association introduced the PG-13 rating some 40 years ago — thanks, weirdly, to Indiana Jones and the Gremlins — it created a box-office behemoth, with studios rushing to make flicks that were just edgy enough to appeal to movie-loving youngsters but nowhere near grizzly enough to give them sleepless nights. That’s proved a pretty dependable formula for seat filling, with the same data from The Numbers showing that movies with the PG-13 label have outearned every other rating in every nonpandemic year in North America this century. 2024 could finally end that streak.

If “Moana 2”’s record-shattering start runs on, it’ll be tighter than ever, and, as history can attest, PG moviegoers are just like the rest of us: they love a good follow-up. Indeed, of the top 15 highest-grossing PG-rated films of all time, 10 are later installments in a series or remakes.

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The most popular male and female names in the US, according to the latest Census

New data published Tuesday by the US Census Bureau has revealed the most common names provided in the 2020 Census, in the first release to include forename data since 1990.

As described in the brief, Michael was the most popular name for males in the US, with roughly 3.5 million American men reporting having this name or a close variant. This is up from fourth place in the 1990 Census, when the top US male name was James — though there were still 3 million Jameses in 2020’s tally.

Despite a three-decade gap, Mary remained the top name for American females in both censuses, with the 2020 survey counting almost 1.8 million females with this given name. Interestingly, Mary was one of just two predominantly female names that broke the top 10 given names in the US, with the overall list dominated mostly by male monikers.

Most popular names US census 2020 chart — Sherwood News

In all, American females had far more first-name diversity than male counterparts: 16% of US males had one of the top 10 most frequent names among men, compared with 7.8% of women. Zooming out, almost 3x as many given names were needed to cover a quarter of the US female population than that of males.

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6 months after hiking Game Pass prices by 50%, Xbox determines it may be too expensive

Microsoft’s new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, thinks the division’s recent price hikes have been a mistake, per an internal memo to employees seen by The Verge.

“Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation,” Sharma’s memo reportedly read.

It’s an interesting take, given that Xbox hiked the price of its Game Pass subscription by 50% in October, before Sharma took over. The memo is a signal that Sharma’s tenure — which began in February, taking the industry by surprise — will include some big changes for Microsoft’s gaming strategy.

Whether Game Pass prices will drop is not yet clear. Last month, The Information reported that Sharma and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters have “kicked around ideas” about potential bundles. That would fit with Netflix’s renewed gaming ambitions.

Xbox Game Pass ‘has become too expensive,’ says Microsoft’s new gaming chief in leaked memo

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LIFELINE

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Will a resolve to reduce screen time see a revival of landline telephones?

For parents trying to limit their kids’ exposure to smartphones, the answer could be yesterday’s tech.

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IN THE GREEN

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Rory McIlroy just secured a second consecutive Masters title — and the biggest prize pot to date

Winning a sixth major title in the year of a record purse, McIlroy is now the Masters’ highest-earning golfer.

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Roblox announces age-based accounts for young users as child safety lawsuits pile up

Roblox on Monday announced its first accounts created specifically for young children and teens, furthering its efforts to increase child safety on the platform.

In June, Roblox Kids (for ages 5 to 8) and Roblox Select (for ages 9 to 15) will roll out, following the company’s global launch of mandatory age checks in January.

The new account types will feature different default settings — chats will automatically be set to “off” on Kids accounts — and limit access to games of certain ratings depending on age.

Child safety lawsuits and social media bans are piling up for Roblox, whose shares have dropped more than 30% year to date. In February, Los Angeles County sued the platform, alleging it created a “largely unsupervised online world” in which “child predators can readily locate, contact, and interact with minors.”

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