*** Official THE LOVELY BONES Discussion Thread

There were several turning points: In early November, Jackson called Paramount vice chair Rob Moore to say he'd seen 20th Century Fox's "Avatar" and that "Avatar" was going to suck up all the oxygen at the box office once it opened Dec. 18.

Jackson suggested that they not open the film nationwide on Dec. 11, but just go out in a few theaters.

Around the same time in November, Paramount began surveying people in shopping malls about TV spots for the film. They fully expected to get the best reaction from adults, particularly older women.

How wrong they were. Instead, it was younger women and teenagers -- the "Twilight" crowd -- who were the most enthusiastic. Moore arranged for a test screening with this audience in Kansas City on Nov. 19 (coincidentally, Summit Entertainment's "New Moon" opened in midnight runs on Nov. 20).

Ken Kamins, Jackson's longtime manager and exec producer of "Lovely Bones," was at the screening. "The results were tremendous. That night was when the campaign began to change," he said.

 

If that's when the change began, the film's disappointing opening on Dec. 11 made it abundantly clear adults were no longer the target demo.

And there was furious debate among critics as to Jackson's use of special effects in portraying heaven.

Yet it was the film's spiritual themes, and the father-daughter relationship, that younger females responded in particular to, Moore said. Par cut ads playing these up and began airing spots on female-skewing channels, including Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network.