SECRET OF SELLING GROSS FILMS FOR LARGER GROSSES

The aesthetic Grand Canyon separating the dumb-comedy audience from those who wouldn’t be caught dead at “Bachelor Party” or “Revenge of the Nerds” poses problems for studio executives. One of them, Irv Ivers, describes it as “the televisionization of the young filmgoers. This means that many of the teen comedies must be described in 10 words or less, like a blurb in TV Guide.”

In addition, Ivers and others said that new teen comedy sales plans must be built on four facts of life that are perhaps peculiar to the genre:

--The films usually have no major stars who can show up on the prime-time talk shows the week the movies are released.

--The teen-agers cannot be reached by newspaper critics or by most newspaper ads. They don’t read.

--The raunchy, leering scenes that bring teen audiences out in droves can barely be hinted at in TV spots.

--The wrong word or shading in a commercial can seem trite and overused, causing adolescents to shun a movie like the plague.

When it comes to selling these films, word-of-mouth is king.

Tom Sherak, president of domestic distribution and marketing for 20th Century Fox, put it this way: “You know what is really amazing? How do these kids know, when these movies open, which will be a hit and which a flop? How do they know so quickly not to go to a film before reviews can even appear in the papers or on television? There’s an incredible underground out there.”

So the studios have relied on hundreds of sneak previews and a series of public stunts to sell the genre in a marketing formula that harks back three years to the time Fox was faced with distributing “Porky’s,” a film dripping with sex, double-entendre and sleaze and an unknown commodity at the time.

The studio decided to sneak up on the vast teen-age market, particularly the 14- to 17-year-olds. So, millions of adolescents learned about “Porky’s” through a crafty word-of-mouth campaign. More than a hundred thousand teens then saw the film at more than 300 free screenings across America. And the word began to spread. (The process was later repeated in France, Spain, Britain and Australia.)

“We could never have sold that film in the conventional high-saturation manner,” said Ivers, then executive vice president of advertising, promotion and publicity at Fox, who later left to become president of worldwide marketing at MGM/UA.

Ivers and Linda Goldenberg, the studio’s vice president of field operations and national promotions, took a leisurely six months to develop the “ ‘Porky’s’ Plan.” Fox had the finished print in hand on Sept. 1, 1981, but didn’t release it nationally in 900 theaters until mid-March of 1982. In November of 1981, “Porky’s” opened quietly in two suburban theaters--one in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the other in Columbia, S.C.

The first-night audiences at both were sparse but raucous. On the second night, the theaters were full and the laughter became a roar. Ten days later, the manager of the theater in South Carolina noted that as much as one-fourth of the audience were repeaters. Within a month, teen-agers from Denver and other towns were flooding down to Colorado Springs, and ticket buyers from as far away as Washington, D.C., helped pack the theater in South Carolina.

Last winter, MGM finally agreed to distribute a modest ski film that it had been offered twice before and which had been turned down by virtually every distribution company in Hollywood. The studio acquired “Hot Dog--the Movie” early last January and screened it for top studio executives a week after New Year’s.

Ivers was excited from the first, believing that it had just enough sex, a dash of raunch and a plethora of mindless ski stunts to make a hit with the teen-age audience. He immediately embarked on a $4-million selling plan that was double the film’s original budget. “A lot of our success with this film was due to timing,” Ivers said. “We were just coming out of a very bleak Christmas season in which youth product was virtually unknown. So we waited patiently in the wings and booked ‘Hot Dog’ into theaters forced to close their dismal products early. We then hyped the film as a terrific ski party available right in the middle of January.”

“Hot Dog” was booked into 800 theaters and grossed $20 million during its first run.

Just weeks later, Warner Bros. took the Ladd Co.’s “Police Academy,” which several executives had called a “mutant, impossible to sell,” and piloted it to $150 million in worldwide ticket sales. The film had only a touch of nudity, one of the most famous fellatio scenes in screen history (which could hardly be used by publicists) and a series of one-liners that seemed to drop out of the sky.

The studio decided to sell it as if it were a law-enforcement “Animal House,” which it certainly wasn’t, and stressed the film’s flirtation with grossness and black humor. For instance, the poster read: “Call them gross. . . . Call them slobs.” These catch slogans were also stressed on radio and TV, causing director Hugh Wilson to complain that the promotion misrepresented his film. But he acknowledged that the “campaign was wildly successful.”

The genre panders to its adolescent audience in other ways as well--particularly in editing process. Many scenes were edited in part because of reaction to the uncut film at special previews. With “Revenge of the Nerds,” more than 20 special screenings were held.

“Police Academy” producer Paul Maslansky and director Hugh Wilson used far more carefully selected industry audiences to slice their film to its polished cut. “In some cases, Wilson filmed several scenes as grossly as possible--the way Warner Bros. wanted--so that we could that all see that excess was wrong. In almost every case, we went with a far subtler version,” Maslansky said.

“It was important--if not crucial--to screen the rough-cut film for 16- to 21-year-old audiences,” Wilson said. “And while I was watching the previews, there were moments when I thought I really should be put in jail for this and moments when I thought it was quite good. But the reaction by the young audience often determined the cutting and editing.”