Audiences want family films? No, they want good films. Why family films have a higher batting average for quality.

Here's a novel idea: Toy Story 3 is making bank because it's the best big-studio movie of the year and audiences have already noticed. Steven Zeitchik of the LA Times is wrong. Audiences are not flocking to family films because of some rebellion against adult pictures. Audiences are flocking to family pictures because the kids-flicks are better than the adult movies at the moment. Audiences want good films, period. Sure, critics and audiences may disagree on what is 'good', and lousy all-ages pictures like Alice in Wonderland or teen-centric movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen may be massive hits despite their lack of quality. But at the end of the day, if studios make a good movie and can open the picture through marketing, audiences will usually respond. The Hangover didn't gross six times its opening weekend because it tapped into some kind of zeitgeist. It grossed $277 million off a $44 million opening weekend because it was good. How to Train Your Dragon didn't slowly pull in $215 million from a $43 million opening weekend because audiences suddenly remembered that they had kids. It stuck around because it was a terrific movie, and those that initially saw it fought like hell to make sure their friends and family saw it too.

The Karate Kid was unique amongst the summer fare in that it was arguably the lone big summer movies that based its marketing campaign on the idea that it was a good movie. The marketing did not base its campaign on the fact that is a sequel to a movie you liked two years ago (Iron Man 2), or a film you had an obligation to see if you were a female (Sex and the City 2), or a desperate knock-off of a movie you loved ten years ago (Robin Hood), or a dumbed-down version of a 25-year old TV show that was pretty dumb to begin with (The A-Team), or something that vaguely resembled action/fantasy franchises that you really liked over the last decade (Prince of Persia). Sony sold the character work of Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan and the inherent drama in the story that was being told and got audiences, young and old, into the theater based on the promise of quality. Of all the big summer movies thus far, Sony's The Karate Kid campaign was the only one that had faith in the quality of the film they were selling. And since The Karate Kid was actually an emotionally compelling and engaging movie, audiences are responding accordingly (Toy Story 3 came with the Pixar badge of quality, so they didn't have to push too hard).

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