Four major studios smokefree so far in 2015 — Fox, Sony, indies lag

Kid-rated movies from four major studios — Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros.  — were 100 percent smokefree in the first half of 2015, a record number of companies.
 
Smoking was down, but not out, at the two other MPAA member studios, Fox and Sony.
 
Overall, 28 percent of G, PG and PG-13 films featured tobacco imagery January through June, 2015, compared to 38 percent in the same period the year before. The average number of tobacco incidents in youth-rated films dropped from 13 to 5.
 
In the past, companies have not sustained their smokefree performances for long, leading the CDC to observe that “individual movie company policies alone have not been efficient at minimizing smoking in movies.”
 
Seven of the ten kid-rated movies with smoking so far in 2015 came from independent film companies, not members of the MPAA. This further strengthens the case of the R-rating, which would apply to all movie companies.
 
If two-thirds of MPAA-member companies can act as if the R-rating is already in place, why not adopt the R-rating and protect kids permanently?
 
Caveat:  2015 is only half over. There’s still time for movie companies to expose millions of kids to billions of on-screen tobacco impressions.
 
Tables listing the top grossing kid-rated and R-rated movies released between January and June 2015 and who released them are available here.
 
Based on data from Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!, a project of Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails.
 
(Jonathan Polansky helped prepare this post.)