(6 of 6)
Adult pictures will continue to be made—because they look good in the folio, because they appeal to the social conscience of a studio boss, because they can be relatively inexpensive to produce and because, you never know, one or two of them might surprise everybody and go Golden. The problem is that Hollywood's most talented young directors are not interested in making movies that appeal primarily to adults. Instead, as Writer-Director Paul Schrader has noted, "they remake the movies they loved as kids."
When the remake is as enchanting as E.T., no one can complain. But a prodigiously gifted film maker like Spielberg might hold even his youthful fans if he were to expand his range and make other kinds of movies—as Lucas and John Carpenter and Brian De Palma might. The stray adventurous mogul might be persuaded to finance their ventures into the adult world. And the baby-boom audience, just now approaching early middle age, might follow them. All this could happen tomorrow, and nobody could guarantee that the movie industry would break another box-office record. But the eager faces in those long summer lines would surely have pleasures worth waiting for. —By Richard Corliss. Reported by Elaine Dutka/New York and Martha Smilgis/Los Angeles