The MPAA, Sex, and Box Office Gross

This study looks at how sex, violence, and profanity can affect the box office gross of different movies. Data for the box office grosses of movies from 2013 was gathered from boxofficemojo.com and quantifiable levels of sex, violence, and profanity was used from Kids-in-mind.com. Three controls were added: the number of theaters the movie was released on, the percent of the audience that was male, and the percent of audience that was female. A simple regression analysis was used to analyze the variables and found that the number of theaters released was the most significant factor in box office gross. Looking at sexual content by itself showed that the more sexual content in a movie the less money it will make in the box office. Further research with alcohol and tobacco use in movies is needed, as well as looking at the budget sizes for the movies