Getting Past the Exciting Intro

I just recently watched "grown-ups" with Adam Sandler and a slew of other comedians and I felt as though the beginning was fairly entertaining but the slap-stick humor that each comedian usually brings to a film alone was too much and did not blend together after they were all together on the screen. I feel this way in classes that I have taken before. So how can teachers get past the exciting lure that bring the students in and keep their attention the entire term?
I don't know that I have a great answer for this problem, if I did I am guessing I would make a fortune by teaching others how to conquer this problem in movies, music, and the classroom. My short suggestion would be that teachers need to know that this is a problem in most classrooms. Students may sign up for a literature class because the course description sounds alluring with suggestion of romantic love stories, or battle stories, but what is not mentioned are the long hours of tearing into shakespeare line by line, or trying to decipher old english. I don't think these things need to be mentioned in the course descriptions. Students need to get past their fear of doing course work, but not by force of a bad grade. Instead teachers need to work on creating exciting and attention grabbing lessons once the students are already in the classroom. I don't have a template or something easy to pass on to a teacher, but I can say that if each person works on creating a draw each and every day within the classroom the students will benefit greatly and will want to learn instead of being forced to learn or fail based on doing the work.
This is of course a humble opinion from someone who has only taught in one classroom for one term so far. I have taught many other classes, but not in a formal setting in which I needed to find additional ways to draw and keep my students interested. I would be interested in hearing what others might have to say on this topic.
Sabrina~