A PG-13 rating is now almost slavishly sought after, even by filmmakers who may have shunned it 20 or 30 years ago as too chaste. This attitude has accelerated over the last few years, as theater owners began to enforce the ratings codes rigorously.
. . .
Thirty years ago, recalled Robert Towne, one of Hollywood's most estimable screenwriters, he and other writers went out of their way to make R-rated movies, exploring adult themes for adult audiences. Mr. Towne, who won an Academy Award for "Chinatown," and wrote such 1970's hits as "Shampoo" and "The Last Detail," said the notion of writing a PG-13 film at the time appalled him and his friends.
. . .
By all accounts, the wide release of "Jaws," the 1975 film directed by Steven Spielberg, incited the hunger among studios for PG-13 films. Before "Jaws," most movies, including "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde," were released one weekend in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto, and then slowly over the next month around the country.
Etcetera.
Just one problem: the PG-13 rating didn't exist until 1984.
As members of my generation well remember, the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins as PG films in May 1984 prompted the demand for the intermediate rating, and the first film released with such a rating was Red Dawn, storming screens later that summer.
So what "accounts" is Weinraub talking about, exactly?
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