AGE RATING BOX OFFICE 5th Wave's 15 wipes target audience

I've raised again recently the issue of 18 ratings as box office cyanide, but here's a great example of the difference between 12 and 15 too - and a practical application of the Gant Rule to boot.

Adapted from the Rick Yancey science fiction novel, and featuring a female teen protagonist, future dystopia, alien invasion and two appealing romantic options for our heroine,The 5^th Wave appeared to have all the elements needed to connect it with the tween and early-teen girl audience that has proved so crucial to the success of franchises such as Twilight, The Hunger Games and Divergent. What The 5^thWave crucially lacked, however, was the certificate – a 12A – that would have made the film available to those audiences in The UK. Instead, British censor the BBFC slapped it with a 15 (for “strong violence” and “injury detail”). In the US, it’s rated PG-13. The 5^th Wave debuted with a rather flat £498,000 from 338 cinemas. In the US, it opened with $10.3m. Based on that number, a UK debut gross of around £1m might have been predicted.

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