Disney’s Boy Trouble: Studio Seeks Original IP to Win Back Gen-Z Men Amid Marvel, Lucasfilm Struggles

This dilemma for Disney is so laughable. They own all of the most successful movie IPs that targeted predominantly young men, were openly hostile to young men both in the films and in the press, and now they are mystified about where the young men went?

Their own argument back in the day for why they needed to refocus their films on "marginalized" audiences should have told them this would happen. How long have we all known that there are movies that cater predominantly to men and movies that cater predominantly to women? Forever. When you take male targeted IPs and make them girl brands you lose the males just as readily as if you made a sequel to Bridges of Madison County and modeled it after a John Wick film.

The screw up of the Marvel IP, though, is probably the most confusing to me. They have all the sales numbers on the comic books they are basing their movies on. They already knew what sold and what didn't for the demographic that made Marvel a multi-billion IP. If you choose to pull a story line from the Marvel catalogue, how hard is it to look at how well that story line sold first? If you are pulling a story line that didn't sell in it's original form, it probably won't sell as a movie.

The thing I find most confusing about Marvel's failure is that a comic book is essentially the entirety of a film's pre-production complete with storyboarding, narrative queues and dialogue.

All that Disney has to do is go back to the most popular comic stories in Marvel history, pull the comics, and shoot them shot-for-shot off the comic pages and those films would resonate with the target audiences.

It's not just Disney, though, it's pretty much the entire entertainment industry. There is no reason to secure an IP for your game or film studio if you have no intention of catering to the fans that made the IP worth what you spent on it.

I am surprised people still buy comic books.

jmotivator said:

Disney’s Boy Trouble: Studio Seeks Original IP to Win Back Gen-Z Men Amid Marvel, Lucasfilm Struggles

As Marvel and Lucasfilm stumble, Disney hopes originals will lure Gen Z audiences.

variety.com

View attachment 67585848

This dilemma for Disney is so laughable. They own all of the most successful movie IPs that targeted predominantly young men, were openly hostile to young men both in the films and in the press, and now they are mystified about where the young men went?

Their own argument back in the day for why they needed to refocus their films on "marginalized" audiences should have told them this would happen. How long have we all known that there are movies that cater predominantly to men and movies that cater predominantly to women? Forever. When you take male targeted IPs and make them girl brands you lose the males just as readily as if you made a sequel to Bridges of Madison County and modeled it after a John Wick film.

The screw up of the Marvel IP, though, is probably the most confusing to me. They have all the sales numbers on the comic books they are basing their movies on. They already knew what sold and what didn't for the demographic that made Marvel a multi-billion IP. If you choose to pull a story line from the Marvel catalogue, how hard is it to look at how well that story line sold first? If you are pulling a story line that didn't sell in it's original form, it probably won't sell as a movie.

The thing I find most confusing about Marvel's failure is that a comic book is essentially the entirety of a film's pre-production complete with storyboarding, narrative queues and dialogue.

All that Disney has to do is go back to the most popular comic stories in Marvel history, pull the comics, and shoot them shot-for-shot off the comic pages and those films would resonate with the target audiences.

It's not just Disney, though, it's pretty much the entire entertainment industry. There is no reason to secure an IP for your game or film studio if you have no intention of catering to the fans that made the IP worth what you spent on it.

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Weren't Disney movies always considered kind of a girly thing? At least, that's how it was when I was a kid. Not that there's anything wrong with liking girly things.

Irredentist said:

Weren't Disney movies always considered kind of a girly thing? At least, that's how it was when I was a kid. Not that there's anything wrong with liking girly things.

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That's the crazy thing. Disney wasn't always a girly thing. The whole Disney Princesses thing was fairly recent in Disney's history.

But, that said, they bought Lucas Film and Marvel in order to expand their appeal to males and then hired a bunch of producers and directors who were actively anti-Male and proceeded to make them girl brands.

Someone seemed to lose the memo a decade ago about why they have acquired those IPs in the first place.

And, of course, base don that article, they aren't going to get any new products that appeal to males if they plan on tapping the same group of "creatives" who couldn't figure out how to make movies that appeal to men with the Marvel and Star Wars franchises.

They are a bunch of people who, if you asked them to act like a man, would jut out their lower jaw, frown and talk like a caveman and think they nailed it.

jmotivator said:

That's the crazy thing. Disney wasn't always a girly thing. The whole Disney Princesses thing was fairly recent in Disney's history.

But, that said, they bought Lucas Film and Marvel in order to expand their appeal to males and then hired a bunch of producers and directors who were actively anti-Male and proceeded to make them girl brands.

Someone seemed to lose the memo a decade ago about why they have acquired those IPs in the first place.

And, of course, base don that article, they aren't going to get any new products that appeal to males if they plan on tapping the same group of "creatives" who couldn't figure out how to make movies that appeal to men with the Marvel and Star Wars franchises.

They are a bunch of people who, if you asked them to act like a man, would jut out their lower jaw, frown and talk like a caveman and think they nailed it.

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I mean, if the primary audience for Disney movies over the last three decades has been girls, then it makes sense that the creative directors at Disney might not understand how to appeal to boys. There's also the question of what young men actually find appealing these days. Which, to be honest, I haven't the faintest clue. Do you?

I think Snow White is the latest and most prominent example of why. Everyone who is normal loves "damsel in distress" love stories, but Disney chose to bastardize it into yet another feminist girlboss propaganda piece, centered around an insufferable manhater that eventually needed to be muzzled for taking it too far.

Irredentist said:

I mean, if the primary audience for Disney movies over the last three decades has been girls, then it makes sense that the creative directors at Disney might not understand how to appeal to boys.

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Yep, hence why they're struggling with the young male demographic now lol.

Irredentist said:

There's also the question of what young men actually find appealing these days. Which, to be honest, I haven't the faintest clue. Do you?

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They literally have decades of successful blueprints to refer to. It's not hard. Just stop the feminist girlboss propaganda and go back to what worked before. Make the heroes at least somewhat believable again.

Irredentist said:

I mean, if the primary audience for Disney movies over the last three decades has been girls, then it makes sense that the creative directors at Disney might not understand how to appeal to boys. There's also the question of what young men actually find appealing these days. Which, to be honest, I haven't the faintest clue. Do you?

Click to expand...

Young men have gravitated primarily to gaming as their source of entertainment, and you can look at the games that are popular with young men to see that what interests young men today are the same things that have always interested young men.

Binary_Digit said:

Yep, hence why they're struggling with the young male demographic now lol.


They literally have decades of successful blueprints to refer to. It's not hard. Just stop the feminist girlboss propaganda and go back to what worked before. Make the heroes at least somewhat believable again.

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The funny thing is you don't even really need to drop the "girl boss" from your stories, you just need to stop emasculating the men in the process.

Look at the movies ALIENS for example, or TERMINATOR 2 ... both movies and generally male targeted stories with strong female leads. But they succeed because there was also a strong male lead in the movie.

I think people in general are tired of the remakes and constantly expanding and regurgitating of existing story lines - especially when the story lines get played out.

Disney does need original NEW content.

When was the last “new” idea? Pixar has had new children’s movies…but I can’t recall anything geared above kids.

As the article said - Pirates of the Caribbean was new and original and fun.

Fortnite would be a no-brainer - but the article says they don’t have movie rights.

There’s a mint to be made by a creative writer here.

BirdinHand said:

I think people in general are tired of the remakes and constantly expanding and regurgitating of existing story lines - especially when the story lines get played out.

Disney does need original NEW content.

When was the last “new” idea? Pixar has had new children’s movies…but I can’t recall anything geared above kids.

As the article said - Pirates of the Caribbean was new and original and fun.

Fortnite would be a no-brainer - but the article says they don’t have movie rights.

There’s a mint to be made by a creative writer here.

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Movies simply need sincere writing and a lack of politicization. If a movie doesn't have a strong female lead because it doesn't work with the narrative, so what?? If there's a strong female lead because it fits the story line or is the whole story, great. This isn't about the audience as much as it is executives trying to push contrived story lines in an attempt to shape social norms. Social norms are going to shape themselves without their help. People are rejecting what they perceive to be elitism. They want to be immersed in stories as an escape, not be "swayed" or "influenced," as victims of an elitist agenda. Audiences can feel that agenda and see it in unbelievable plots, so they're turning away, young AND old, and they should

Logophile said:

Movies simply need sincere writing and a lack of politicization. If a movie doesn't have a strong female lead because it doesn't work with the narrative, so what?? If there's a strong female lead because it fits the story line or is the whole story, great. This isn't about the audience as much as it is executives trying to push contrived story lines in an attempt to shape social norms. Social norms are going to shape themselves without their help. People are rejecting what they perceive to be elitism. They want to be immersed in stories as an escape, not be "swayed" or "influenced," as that's the agenda of elitists. They can feel that agenda and see it in an unbelievable plots, so they're turning away, young AND old, and they should

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Then write it.

Like I said - there is a mint to be made.

They need new ideas. Outside of movies geared towards kids - all I can see are expanding on existing genres (that’s getting worn out and boring) and remakes of old movies. And remakes only go so far.

Binary_Digit said:

Yep, hence why they're struggling with the young male demographic now lol.


They literally have decades of successful blueprints to refer to. It's not hard. Just stop the feminist girlboss propaganda and go back to what worked before. Make the heroes at least somewhat believable again.

Click to expand...

Do you have any ideas? What kind of movie would you make to appeal to young men?

jmotivator said:

Young men have gravitated primarily to gaming as their source of entertainment, and you can look at the games that are popular with young men to see that what interests young men today are the same things that have always interested young men.

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So, Call of Duty and Fortnite? Should Disney start making war movies? Maybe a battle royale type miniseries? That just seems like trend chasing to me.

BirdinHand said:

Then write it.

Like I said - there is a mint to be made.

They need new ideas. Outside of movies geared towards kids - all I can see are expanding on existing genres (that’s getting worn out and boring) and remakes of old movies. And remakes only go so far.

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I have. and it's long enough for a mini series but it deals with history - an unpopular history - and it's got lots of "big words" because it opens in the modern day but with a19th century vernacular that slowly erodes as the protagonist evolves. It's a thriller on the surface but has a lot of layers. I blew it with an agent but have sold a fair amount in England because the protagonist is a Britisher, albeit in the American west. All the characters have a past that interplays with the present, and it's even a ghost story

Logophile said:

I have. and it's long enough for a mini series but it deals with history - an unpopular history - and it's got lots of "big words" because it opens in the modern day but with a19th century vernacular that slowly erodes as the protagonist evolves. It's a thriller on the surface but has a lot of layers. I blew it with an agent but have sold a fair amount in England because the protagonist is a Britisher, albeit in the American west. All the characters have a past that interplays with the present, and it's even a ghost story

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Very cool. Expand on it!

Having the ability to write scripts is an art. Do it!

BirdinHand said:

I think people in general are tired of the remakes and constantly expanding and regurgitating of existing story lines - especially when the story lines get played out.

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People are tired of remakes (or remakes), but that isn't really what is going on with Disney. There are cases where sequels, prequels and remakes still make money, they just have to be good and services the expectations of the fans that made the franchise valuable.

BirdinHand said:

Disney does need original NEW content.

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I agree. I have argued for a decade now that if Disney really wanted diversity in their portfolio they should have made new IPs to service that audience rather than kill their other brands.

You could make movies that play to those target audiences with a budget that is in line with expected audience turnout. A movie like Brokeback Mountain made ~$180 million on a budget of $14 million. That's a great success. Had they made the movie for $250 million it would have been a failure.

The Sound of Freedom made $250 million worldwide on a budget of $15 million

BirdinHand said:

When was the last “new” idea? Pixar has had new children’s movies…but I can’t recall anything geared above kids.

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I can think of several, but we don't hear about them because nobody went to see them. Mortal Engines was a rather interesting movie, but nobody saw it.

The reason Korea and Japan are dominating the screen time of young people is because it is all new ideas to Western eyes.

BirdinHand said:

As the article said - Pirates of the Caribbean was new and original and fun.

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It was, and the sequels still make made money.

I don't think Hollywood knows how to make marketable movies anymore because they don't make movies for the audience anymore. They make movies for themselves, both spiritually and financially. They blow through cash because it's how they enrich themselves financially, and they make movies that they and their friends in the bubble want to see to enrich themselves spiritually. What they end up with is a movie that can't hope to make its money back.

There is always the argument they can fall back on of movies as art, and you don't make art for the audience. The problem is that that kind of attitude works for movies that cost $15 million and only need $30 million to break even... that doesn't work for movies that cost $300 million and need $750 million to break even.

BirdinHand said:

Fortnite would be a no-brainer - but the article says they don’t have movie rights.

Click to expand...

I mean, Fortnite also wouldn't count as a new idea. If you ask me, the problem with Fortnite is that it is a playful take on what is a violent make believe sport. I'm not sure how you translate light hearted, violent and PG into a marketable movie.

It's more of the grabbing at existing IPs to solve their problems when their problems are all because they are ruining existing IPs.

BirdinHand said:

There’s a mint to be made by a creative writer here.

Click to expand...

Of course, the irony there is that they wouldn't need to scrounge for existing IPs if they had creative writers on staff.

jmotivator said:

Disney’s Boy Trouble: Studio Seeks Original IP to Win Back Gen-Z Men Amid Marvel, Lucasfilm Struggles

As Marvel and Lucasfilm stumble, Disney hopes originals will lure Gen Z audiences.

variety.com

View attachment 67585848

This dilemma for Disney is so laughable. They own all of the most successful movie IPs that targeted predominantly young men, were openly hostile to young men both in the films and in the press, and now they are mystified about where the young men went?

Their own argument back in the day for why they needed to refocus their films on "marginalized" audiences should have told them this would happen. How long have we all known that there are movies that cater predominantly to men and movies that cater predominantly to women? Forever. When you take male targeted IPs and make them girl brands you lose the males just as readily as if you made a sequel to Bridges of Madison County and modeled it after a John Wick film.

The screw up of the Marvel IP, though, is probably the most confusing to me. They have all the sales numbers on the comic books they are basing their movies on. They already knew what sold and what didn't for the demographic that made Marvel a multi-billion IP. If you choose to pull a story line from the Marvel catalogue, how hard is it to look at how well that story line sold first? If you are pulling a story line that didn't sell in it's original form, it probably won't sell as a movie.

The thing I find most confusing about Marvel's failure is that a comic book is essentially the entirety of a film's pre-production complete with storyboarding, narrative queues and dialogue.

All that Disney has to do is go back to the most popular comic stories in Marvel history, pull the comics, and shoot them shot-for-shot off the comic pages and those films would resonate with the target audiences.

It's not just Disney, though, it's pretty much the entire entertainment industry. There is no reason to secure an IP for your game or film studio if you have no intention of catering to the fans that made the IP worth what you spent on it.

Click to expand...

Everything in your post wouldn’t have applied to guardians of the galaxy. Mcu is a victim of capitalism ruining good thing.

Irredentist said:

Do you have any ideas? What kind of movie would you make to appeal to young men?

Click to expand...

Just off the top of my head: Good guy beats bad guy, saves the girl, and they fall in love. It's a classic tried-and-true formula that both men and women can fantasize about. But in today's climate it can be risky to portray a woman in need of help from a man lol. And it's partly their own fault, for letting the Sweet Baby Inc. types take over.

jmotivator said:

doesn't work for movies that cost $300 million and need $750 million to break even

Click to expand...

And I think this is a lot of the challenge.

BirdinHand said:

Then write it.

Like I said - there is a mint to be made.

They need new ideas. Outside of movies geared towards kids - all I can see are expanding on existing genres (that’s getting worn out and boring) and remakes of old movies. And remakes only go so far.

Click to expand...

The one issue with your argument here is that "outside of movies geared towards kids" ... that is wishful thinking. It is long been known that movies rated R and above simply don't make the money that a movie rated G or PG make.

If you want to make money you make movies that the audience can bring their kids to, and it's always been so.

Ironically, of the 10 top grossing R rated films of all time, 7 of them are Comic Book related.

jmotivator said:

This dilemma for Disney is so laughable. They own all of the most successful movie IPs that targeted predominantly young men, were openly hostile to young men both in the films and in the press, and now they are mystified about where the young men went?

Click to expand...

The article doesn't even hint at this.

BirdinHand said:

And I think this is a lot of the challenge.

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Yeah, and thinking back to your Fortnite suggestion, I have a few ideas of how to make that movie but all the good ones would play out more like SQUID GAME and be totally not suitable for the Fortnite audience.

j brown's body said:

The article doesn't even hint at this.

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I realize that you can't conceive of opinions that you didn't borrow from other people... which ironically is part of the creative problem with Disney as well.

jmotivator said:

The one issue with your argument here is that "outside of movies geared towards kids" ... that is wishful thinking. It is long been known that movies rated R and above simply don't make the money that a movie rated G or PG make.

If you want to make money you make movies that the audience can bring their kids to, and it's always been so.

Ironically, of the 10 top grossing R rated films of all time, 7 of them are Comic Book related.

View attachment 67585863

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I was talking about cartoon movies, I should have been more clear.

examples being Lightyear, Elemental, Moana, etc.