Sex Doesn't Sell Movies, It Sells DVDs

According to recent results, explicit sex scenes and gratuitous nudity does not a box office hit make. The longitudinal study included movies from 2001-2005 and found the top grossers to be films with little-to-no nude scenes like Lord Of The Rings, Shrek, and the new Star Wars (apparently extreme violence still sells, so go ahead and chop those arms off!). So is our culture becoming more prudish? Not exactly. We just rather see the dirty stuff in the privacy of our own homes.

Consider the recent rumor that James Cameron's recent hit Avatar will include an extended sex scene between Avatar and alien, and how Cameron himself is hyping up this coupling, which had to be cut from the original release. It's not that we don't want sex in our films...we just don't want it in our theater,s where we have to sit uncomfortably in silence with 200 other people getting turned on at the same time.