New adolescent smokers recruited by motion picture studios, per year 1999-2007, and their value to the tobacco industry* Company Number of Teen Recruits Number of Eventual Deaths Tobacco Sales Revenue (millions) Tobacco Profit (millions) Time Warner 89,000 29,000 $940 $191 Sony 74,000 24,000 $782 $159 GE 72,000 23,000 $759 $154 Disney 58,000 19,000 $613 $124 Viacom 42,000 13,000 $442 $90 News Corp. 35,000 11,000 $364 $74 Independents 19,000 6,000 $199 $40 TOTAL 390,000 125,000 $4,100 $832 *Estimated net present value. See calculation.

• Movies in theaters delivered an estimated 51.1 billion tobacco impressions to U.S. audiences over the last nine years.

• Youth-rated movies (G/PG/PG-13) have consistently delivered about 2.5 billion tobacco impressions annually. In 2007, they delivered an estimated 3.1 billion.

• Three media companies — Sony, Time Warner, and Disney — have accounted for 60% of youth-rated films with smoking and, with GE’s Universal, for 82% of tobacco impressions delivered by youth-rated movies.

• More than a thousand Hollywood and independent movies since 1999 featured tobacco: 87% of R-rated films, 74% of PG-13 films and 37% of G/PG movies — 74% in total (1077/1446).

• On average, an R-rated film with smoking had more than twice as many tobacco incidents as a PG-13 movie with smoking (12 vs. 6), but G/PG/PG-13 movies attract larger audiences and delivered half of all teen tobacco impressions.

• Tops in each rating category: 56% of Sony’s G/PG movies included tobacco; so did 80% of PG-13 films from Sony and Lionsgate. All of Weinstein’s R-rated films featured smoking, as did 93% of Disney’s and 91% of GE’s.

• Sony packed the highest number of tobacco incidents into youth-rated films (5.3), one-third more than the industry as a whole. Disney led the major studios in R-rated tobacco incidents: 13.7, exceeded only by non-MPAA members Weinstein and Lionsgate.

Download First-Run Smoking Presentations in U.S. Movies 1999-2006 by Jonathan R. Polansky and Stanton Glantz, PhD, University of California-San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, April 2007. (PDF:1.6 mb)

STUDIO SCORECARDS | 1999-2007

See the full 2004 study for methods or view a step-by-step explanation.

SMOKING OVERALL: 73% (171 of 233)
SMOKING YOUTH-RATED: 63% (95 of 151)
SMOKING R-RATED: 93% (76 of 82)
OF SMOKING MOVIES, 56% are youth-rated
Details | Disney Policy on Smoking in Movies | What it Really Means | Contact Disney

• DREAMWORKS

Acquired by Viacom in 2006. The film library, sold to a group headed by George Soros, is reported with Independents. 2006 and later productions reported with Viacom.

• GENERAL ELECTRIC (Universal, Focus)

SMOKING OVERALL: 80% (141 of 177)
SMOKING YOUTH-RATED: 69% (65 of 94)
SMOKING R-RATED: 92% (76 of 83)
OF SMOKING MOVIES, 50% are youth-rated
Details | Universal Policy on Smoking in Movies | What it Really Means | Contact General Electric

• INDEPENDENTS (Lions Gate, Weinstein, and others)

SMOKING OVERALL: 75% (144 of 193)
SMOKING YOUTH-RATED: 63% (58 of 92)
SMOKING R-RATED: 84% (85 of 101)
OF SMOKING MOVIES, 40% are youth-rated
Details | Contact Lions Gate or The Weinstein Company

• NEWS CORP. (Fox)

SMOKING OVERALL: 65% (115 of 177)
SMOKING YOUTH-RATED: 56% (63 of 113)
SMOKING R-RATED: 81% (52 of 64)
OF SMOKING MOVIES, 55% are youth-rated
Details | Contact News Corp.

• SONY (Sony, Columbia, MGM)

SMOKING OVERALL: 80% (239 of 298)
SMOKING YOUTH-RATED: 76% (137 of 181)
SMOKING R-RATED: 87% (102 of 117)
OF SMOKING MOVIES, 57% are youth-rated
Details | Contact Sony

• TIME WARNER (Warner Bros., New Line, Picturehouse)

SMOKING OVERALL: 70% (206 of 293)
SMOKING YOUTH-RATED: 58% (91 of 157)
SMOKING R-RATED: 85% (115 of 136)
OF SMOKING MOVIES, 44% are youth-rated
Details | Time Warner Policy on Smoking in Movies | What it Really Means | Contact Time Warner

• VIACOM (Paramount, DreamWorks)

SMOKING OVERALL: 78% (107 of 137)
SMOKING YOUTH-RATED: 69% (52 of 75)
SMOKING R-RATED: 89% (55 of 62)
OF SMOKING MOVIES, 49% are youth-rated
Details | Contact Viacom

Back to Top