Film home
The original essay:
Sex doesn't sell, so why is it in the script?
Calculations for the original essay
Table 1: Average US domestic box office gross (pdf)
Table 2: Percentage of women in cast (pdf)
Table 3: Percentage of women by sex/nudity (pdf)
Table 4: Percentage of women by violence (pdf)
Table 5: Percentage of women: sex by violence (pdf)
More details
scatterplots: US data versus UK data
scatterplots: animated versus live data
an earlier writer had a similar opinion
(February, 1995)
Film links
Main home page
Who am I?
Scatterplots for 917 films released 2001-2005
US box office vs sex
US box office vs violence
US box office x percentage of cast that is female
Sex x percentage of the cast that is female
Violence x percentage of the cast that is female
Anemone Cerridwen
September 29, 2007,
updated November 17, 2007 (removed one standup comedy)
updated November 27, 2007 (converted US gross to log data)