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I agree that family fare does better, but often R rated movies are vanity projects, while the family movies are designed to just make money, which they do.

There were some great movies in the early 70's which were edgier. Edgy isn't bad, if it is intelligent as well. I am thinking of the great Gene Hackman movies like the Conversation, and the French Connection, and movies such as The Godfather, and Apocolypse Now. There is a place for adult movies like these. You can only see Bambi so many times ya know.

There's a place for edgy movies, sure.

Hollywood's mistake was to chase audiences by going further and further into gratuitous sex and violence. The more audience they lost, the further out they went, not realizing that they would only drive away more ticket buyers. Judging everything by their own tastes, it took them decades to understand that they had simply misjudged their audiences. Sure, a lot of people like a good R-rated film. But as this article points out, there were numerous statistical studies showing that PG and G rated films were more profitable than R rated films. I saw one study a couple of years ago that said, on average, they are twice as profitable. Because of their narrow mindsets, Hollywood producers simply couldn't believe it.

Also, I hate to say it, but at least some of these folks would rather lose money than stop corrupting America. "Priest" was hardly a best-seller, but it deeply damaged Disney's reputation for years. They just kept plugging it. "Nothing Sacred" is another example. It was at the bottom of the TV ratings for months, and it was damaging ABC/Disney's reputation. But did they back off? Not until dozens of advertisers were persuaded to drop their sponsorship.

It used to be said that these folks were willing to go to any lengths for money. Then it became evident that they were willing to go to any lengths even if it lost money.

But money will presumably win out in the end, as audiences vote with their dollars. GOOD edgy movies will still have their niche, but hopefully you won't have that obligatory pornographic sex scene stuck into every movie whether it fits or not.