The success of American Pie was constituent in wider shifts in Hollywood’s business strategies. Growing from a long tradition of youth-oriented movies originally rooted in the exploitation film industry of the 1950s, American Pie exemplifies the way the style and marketing techniques of the exploitation sector increasingly impacted on mainstream filmmaking. This was especially apparent in an explosion of teen-oriented films released by Hollywood during the late 1970s and 1980s. Particularly prominent were numerous vulgar teen comedies, heralded by National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and Porky’s (1981). During the 1990s a general downturn in the number of US teen movies brought a lull in the output of vulgar teen comedies, but the release of American Pie in 1999 signalled a revival. A commercial hit, American Pie’s success was in the vanguard of a wider resurgence of teen cinema as Hollywood tapped into a growing US youth market during the late 1990s and early 2000s. American Pie exemplifies the way vulgar teen comedies were prominent in this renaissance. The subsequent development of the American Pie franchise was indicative of broader developments in the film business, especially new approaches to risk management and the search for new revenue streams from ancillary markets.