The move to our new apartment is not quite finished it, but it’s getting there. In the meantime, yesterday we received the first pieces of mail that were sent directly to our new address — one of which contained a pair of passes to an Imax 3-D preview screening of Beowulf.
Now, normally, when the studios host a preview screening, they send out a single pass that “admits two” — the assumption presumably being that the person who gets the pass will want to bring a date or a friend. But every now and then, they send out a pair of passes, each of which only “admits one” — and nearly every time they do this, it is for a film that targets the family audience. I have never actually asked why they distinguish between the “admit two” and “admit one” movies, but I assume it is because families come in different sizes, and having a single pass for each person makes it easier to invite the “right” number of people, or something like that.
So I was intrigued to see that the passes for Beowulf were of the “admit one” variety, rather than the “admit two” variety. The film is rated PG-13 in the U.S. for “intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity”, and it is rated 14-A in Ontario for “violence” and “gory scenes”, and it has been promoted online through restricted trailers … but it seems like the preview screenings are getting the “family” treatment, at least in this one rather minor respect.
Is this simply because the film is computer-animated? Is the marketing team behind this film making the mistake of assuming that “animated film” automatically equals “family film”? And if so, is this mistake reflected anywhere else in the movie’s marketing?
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