I don't think they are chasing female audience. I think they are targeting ESG scores, and as everyone knows, the moment measure becomes a goal it ceases to be a good measure.
Very true. I want to believe that 2022 and 23’s losses will change their thinking, but my more rational side knows that just won’t happen. Guess we’ll just have to catalog their demise here in videos and laugh together
@@gregowen2022 I do see it happening with Amazon and Netflix, but Disney is all about politics so they will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to reality. They want to change people, not give them what they want. They want to change what we want, which is just insane and a recipe for failure.
@@gregowen2022 A tip to improve ALL of your videos... VOLUME!!!!! Get that 5h!t under CONTROL. When you talk softly/calmly, you make people turn up the volume to be able to hear you... THEN you YELL... and blow out their eardrums. Some people are listening with headphones.
If they did the female leads more like Katara, Suki, Azula and Toph from Avatar, being more expressive, complex, stronger through training, funny, THEN they can have better chances
When Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm, I thought that they had almost all of childhood wrapped up. Disney Princesses targeted to "girls" and superhero targeted to "boys". Instead, Disney tried to hit all the targets and missed most of them.
Female Gregular here, and longtime movie and tv fanatic. Putting a woman in a lead role does not make me automatically want to see the film or show. Putting a woman in a lead role of an action or superhero flick is definitely not going to make me want to see it. Women like people, men like things. Which is why the male audience flocks to westerns, action, etc… Females like people, characters, relationships. The romantic comedy and drama genre has been completely ignored by Disney in their Marvel/Lucas film phase. And that is why they don’t have a female audience. I would much rather see a smokin hot, sexy macho man lead character in a good story with a hero journey or romance than a five foot tall, 100 pound female with cgi muscles defeating all the toxic male villains. Yawn. Fantastic video as always, Greg. But Seriously, get out of my head!
Theres also a difference in how boys and girls play with toys. Lego did a study like a decade ago and went ahead and created Lego Friends after what they discovered. Boys BECOME the characters so essentially Batman...is BATMAN. He moves lile BATMAN Girls on the other hand make the characters into THEMselves which is why you see Batman having a tea party when the sister takes her brothers action figures😂🤷♂️
@@no.1spidey-fan182As a gregular (heh, love that moniker!) myself, it’s safe to assume that my brain is more masculinely aligned (as the vast majority of his audience is male, and RUclips itself is a more male-dominant platform - so female gregulars are a nieche within a nieche). Anywho. I’ve always had a huge distaste for self-insert fanfiction. It peeves me to no end that this phenomenon has bled into mainstream entertainment (She-Hulk and Geriatric Jones being just two of the most glaring examples). But as the writers have been women, and if the Lego study holds any water, it all makes sense now. 🤯
I can’t leave! Then I wouldn’t know which videos you want next! For real though, people act like it’s so insulting to say what you said “women like people men like things”. It’s the freaking truth and I don’t understand how it’s a bad thing. Rather than try to change people’s very nature, why not just work with them as they are? It would certainly be more profitable
Spidey, I’ve seen that study mentioned before, but you reminded me it’s worth me doing a video because it needs to be repeated often. Lego had the right idea: work with the customers you have, not the fantasy customers you wish you had.
Men like things, yes, but westerns are about character and story, told simply. Action movies that are good are about the same things. There is action, but it serves a purpose. It isn't just brainlessly thrown in there. Good examples are Extraction 2, The Terminal List, or the Empire Strikes back (though I think Return of the Jedi's dual is by far my favorite fight scene). Bad examples are literally all of Nick Cage's "Renfield," or most of Jamie Foxx's "Day Shift" movie. Stupid motivations, dumb characters (who are supposed to somehow be badasses), and fight scenes that involve cameos and satire and gore instead of good motivations and real stakes. Meaning in all cases, the reason Disney is failing is bad writing and, as Greg mentioned, they are targeting genitalia instead of people.
I think this is why so many female fans preferred Loki over Thor. The family tragedy and drama made an interesting story and once Marvel threw Loki away like trash a lot of interest died
Yup. My sister was terrified that Marvel was going to kill Loki in Infinity Wars and refused to watch the movie. I lied and told her he was one of the few that survived. Yeah.... well she enjoyed the movie but she was not happy 😂 Later, she tried watching the Loki series and got even more pissed off that he was pretty much replaced by Lady Loki version in his own show. She's since just refused to watch any more Loki and move on to something else, even though reviews for the second season of Loki were stellar
Female audiences have also flocked towards primarily male-dominated franchises in the past few years. I recall Transformers: Prime and the 2012 TMNT cartoon having a pretty solid female fanbase, and those two shows were pretty well-written. Both of those show had great plots and concepts for the boys, and great characters for the girls. It also helps that they're multi-million dollar franchises with buttloads of merchandise. The thing I see that's prevalent is that Disney, being the top dog in entertainment for a century, is just doing the equivalent of throwing darts while blindfolded at a dartboard with random audiences to cater to. Usually, one audience is good enough. There's an audience for K-dramas, there's an audience for black comedians, and there's an audience for superheroes. The fact that they're trying to appeal to ALL those demographics and just end up with nothing is strange to see.
Sort of reminds me of the ping pong ball in the bottles game you see at fairs. You toss a ball randomly and even though there are many bottles, the ball bounces around and lands in none of them
I’m a Filipino woman in her 50s. If Disney made a movie about someone like me as a superhero, I wouldn’t watch it. I don’t need representation- I just need a story told well. You do not need to shove in POCs and women to make me watch a good story, but if you hand me crap like She-Hulk and expect me to be grateful for it, I’m pulling the plug like I did in the first episode because it was terrible and cringe. If Disney wants advice, here it is: no more IPs, tell original stories that follow the Hero’s Journey (the lead character can be a man or woman but it has to make sense for the story). Get some boomers in the writing room who have actually delivered beloved movies and TV shows who can mentor these millennial writers, who don’t know wtf they’re doing so that the art of good writing isn’t lost. Then follow up with media training for their filmmakers and actors so that they can be pro whatever their agendas are but not anti- anything. These actors need to learn how to be truly inclusive of ALL of their audience, in case they actually make a good story, so that the audience isn’t given a reason to write off the movie before they see it. And if they can't be inclusive, then just learn to STFU so we don't hate them to the point that we root for their failure and revenge boycott their movies. Look at that Rachel Zegler girl: a few dumb comments and even without the ugly takes on feminism everyone hates her because she's that girl you went to school with who says what she wants people to think, but she says it in a hateful way but she acts nice so you can't really attack her for anything so instead you just avoid her. She's one of the popular girls but IRL she doesn't really have friends she can count on, because the kids in her group know she'll throw them under the bus as soon as it's popular to do so. Someone get this girl into media training, stat!
What Disney and the WOKE miss people watch American movies for the WESTERN movie not South American Europe Aisa or Africa Nollywood, Euro nations have there own, Bollywood & South Korea/Japan do every well making movies for "there people" and as a Brt id be a lil shocked if Squid Game II was full of white guys wouldnt be what im looking for im looking to see if The lad can bring them down.. Sadly the woke are bad people who only see skin deep and need themselfs in everything .. I hope none own a mirror ;')
do you know what else women like? Men. it was painful to watch all the neutered and pathetic men they put on screen. watching them assassinate beloved male character in some disgusting attempt to hand over all the power to the women was painful to watch.
Anyone who likes a specific character is not going to enjoy seeing that character be humiliated. There are exceptions to this (Three Stooges), but the exceptions are so rare and in such specific circumstances, that this ought to be an almost cardinal rule.
Manga already does that correctly by targeting each demographic specifically by the things that appeals to them most, Shonen manga aimed at young boys focuses on themes of friendship and hero's journey mixed with flashy combat and over the top dynamic action, Shoujo manga aimed at young girls focuses on fantasy, romances and drama with a small bit of action here or there to ramp up the tension, Seinen manga aimed at older males focuses on more mature content and much darker edgier stories involving all kinds of gore, violence, nudity, ... etc etc, Josei manga focuses more on more adult relationships compared to Shoujo, marriage and relationships, steamy love stories and gossip, etc. So basically they are covering all their bases and not leaving anybody behind, and there are no barriers whatsoever for a male boy to read a Shoujo manga or a female writer to write a Shonen manga (Full Metal Alchemist, one of the best Shonen manga of all time is written and illustrated by a woman), and the common thing between all these demographic focused manga is that the reader always comes first, and their vote is what keeps the story going in many cases (as in literal vote, not just voting with their wallet, manga includes user surveys that you fill and send back, and manga companies take it very seriously since various manga comes out routinely collected in a single big book like Shonen Jump, generally speaking they are the exact opposite of western comics and Hollywood who antagonize and hate their long time customers and fans). The problem here with Hollywood and western comics as well is that they aren't really chasing demographics at all, they are pretending to, they are just narcissists who are writing these movies and comics for themselves, which is the main reason quality suffers a lot, not to mention they appeal to a very narrow niche (themselves) abandoning and insulting their fans in the process, so while I don't mind at all if Disney makes female focused movies (older Disney movies already fulfilled that) but that's not actually what they are doing now.
And you know you have an artist with genuine skill at story telling when their next project is completely different, but still excellent. The artist for Full Metal Alchemist also did Silver Spoon, which is about freakin' farming, farm-life, farm-drama and high-school drama. Watched the anime, loved it, and am now reading the manga, and loving it. When the focus is on quality, you get quality across the demographic board. When the focus isn't on quality, you get modern Western comics.
Don't get me wrong, I like a good looking male lead as much as the next girl, but if he's JUST eye candy, I will click away before my popcorn is done popping. Also after that targeting a specific audience is dumb which you started very nicely. But I will say one thing I'd like to see as a woman, is more female characters accomplishing this through... Traditionally female things. For example, I have been burned multiple times by stories that boasted a female protagonist who was a seamstress and had to use her skills in a competition that had grand stakes or something. Only for the protag to end up going on an Odyssey like quest to acquire her materials, or it turning into more about crafting clothes with magic, than ACTUAL sewing. I mean come on, show me her bargaining to get the fabric she needs or having to make do with scraps. Show me her laboring over embroidery, and each stitch has to be right because she's worked secret messages into the designs or something. I say this as a seamstress. But I feel like this like painting, drawing, baking, what have you are just gimmicks to give characters. Finally, can confirm if you started doing makeup videos, I would pass on them
That would be so nice to see. Hollywood is terrified to show feminine traits as good because, I don’t know, they think they are somehow lesser? I honestly don’t get it. They constantly show masculine stuff in a strong light, even if it’s women doing it, but downplay feminine things. In their effort to make women look strong, they are sending the message that femininity is weak, it’s so backward.
@@gregowen2022 - It's not just Hollywood. The whole social zeitgeist has been focused, for years now, on implanting the idea that feminine qualities are bad and that women should be more like jerk men. Ironically under the guise of "feminism". They HAVE been trying to create the audience they want by programming easily influenced people to believe that. It has apparently worked to some small extent, but not nearly enough to keep that train rolling at the moment. Of course, that's why so much of it is targeted at programming kids and young adults.
@@gregowen2022 One wonders what kind of message, if any, they INTENDED to send with WandaVision. Something along the lines of wanting a family is bad...
Honestly, people need to sever their nostalgia with Disney. Disney is not worth saving just let them die and let other people pick up the franchises that they on who actually care or just leave the franchise is where they are where are the fans will keep them alive down the road or just find something new.
Of all the YT channels bashing Disney, you're one of the few pointing out the core problem. Buying boy brands to diversify, then making them female centric. When Mattel wanted to replicate Barbie sales but with boys they didn't hand Barbie a machine gun they created GI Joe.
No, that was Hot Wheels. The thought was "boys like cars." There was already a brand that sold scale-model cars to boys, Matchbox, and they were doing gangbuster business. Mattel created Hot Wheels to eat into that market (quite successfully. They wound up buying Tyco, the company what owns Matchbox). Only know this because I were contracted to do some work for Mattel in El Segundo. They have a Hot Wheels Museum with the actual cars they made Hot Wheels toys from. ALL the cars.
That's not a rom-com by any metric I ever heard of. It's a highly meta, tongue in cheek fairy tale with some swashbuckler elements. (Check out the 1941 Corsican Brothers for the original of the "mostly dead" subplot.) It has a good and highly idealistic romance track (not much played for comedy, compared to the rest of the film) because that kind of romance comes standard with both fairy tales and swashbucklers.
24 year old woman here. I grew up on Avatar the Last Air Bender, Marvel Movies and the cartoons, Transformers shows, DC cartoons, and I a lot of animated Disney movies. A lot of the things I just mentioned are more boy oriented but I loved them.
As a constant female viewer of yours , I watch you because of your opinion and how it aligns with mine usually or you talk about something of interest to me! It has nothing to do with gender , that being said .... My mom likes to remind me that I look like a frilly teenage girl but my media taste is 12 year old boy 😂 ( star wars , marvel, Tmnt , anime, gaming )
Interestingly, many of the historically high-grossing films had female leads (e.g. GONE WITH THE WIND, SOUND OF MUSIC, even STAR WARS). However, they were unquestionably (& quietly) feminine, with strong leading men to complement them (e.g. Rhett Butler). Ditto for famous novels like JANE EYRE, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Hard to imagine Elizabeth Bennett without Mr. Darcy, or Catherine without Heathcliff. The current filmmakers (or the suits) just don't seem to "get it." Or they refuse to "get it." They seem obsessed with pseudo-male characters and agenda-filled scripts.
Content for men is generally open for everyone. The majority of male-centric media also has a decent portion of female audiences. Content for women is for women only. The majority of women-centric media is unwatchable to most male audiences. It’s like fitness centers/gyms: There are plenty of LA Fitness and Planet Fitness gyms out there and men predominantly comprise their memberships. Meanwhile, there are female-only gyms like Curves and Women’s World. Disney has DESTROYED its bases. They had cornered the market for little girls with their Princesses, Tinker Belle, & live action girl shows. Star Wars, Marvel, & Indiana Jones had HUGE male audiences and fandoms. They even had “Family” audiences by providing “safe” child-oriented content that parents could feel fine with using to babysit their kids. Now? All the Princess stuff is full of masculine female characters so a lot of girls that liked to be girls are turned off. All the feminized Star Wars/Marvel/Indiana Jones stuff has completely turned off male audiences with any level of self-respect. Finally, the “family” content has been flooded with gross sexuality and rainbow crap so those audiences are gone too. Good job, Disney. 👍
yep. male spaces are always infiltrated by women. Women's spaces are left alone since we can have some peace. (obviously not talking about the weirdos using loopholes to get into women's locker rooms -- by request of women BTW)
Oh god. Once a female friend of mine asked me to go to a Curves to get her an application because she couldn't get to it that day. The stares I got when I walked in there were genuinely frightening. (And, no, I wasn't looking for a loophole, lol. I sincerely had no idea at the time that it was a women-only gym - though now that I think about it, I wonder if she did and thought it would be funny.)
It's true. Just look at anime/manga demographics. Shounen (teen boys - young adults) is by the most popular with numerous iconic franchises loved by millions. And of course, most of that is battle shounen and battle shounen adjacent stuff like Dr. Stone, Death Note, etc. Next is Seinen (adult men), which while less popular than shounen, is still very popular and widely discussed with a handful of iconic franchise and plenty of very popular series. Third is shojo (girls) which is very rarely discussed outside of the a small handful of iconic/notable series (Sailor Moon, Madoka, Precure, Fruits Basket). Even then, a good chunk of those are battle focused magical girl series, which are essentially the shojo equivalent to battle shounen. Lastly, there's Josei (adult women), which I have literally never seen anyone talk about outside of two instances this year of people specifically talking about demographics.
You can actually see this trend in the Magic Mike Series. They all had hot sexy guys stripping and dancing, but the first had a decent story involving more meaningful character interactions. The first movie was also the most successful of the bunch.
"My Adventures with Superman" is exactly the cooperation and teamwork between the Super powered male and the plucky, brave, non powered female lead. In almost every major fight Lois helps Superman while not over shadowing him. She serves as a distraction, or gets the macguffin while Superman is the distraction and other such things. It really is an awesome show where Superman gets to be Superman and Lois gets to be Lois, both are competent, neither "dunk" on the other, and they're both clearly in love with each other. It's a show my wife and I love to watch together.
Concerning existing IP: Disney can expand their audience by hiring nerdy writers who respectfully know the lore inside and out and pair them with experienced directors or showrunners who have a vetted grasp on what works logistically, commercially, etc. If you ONLY hire nerds, you will probably end up with something that isn’t very accessible to general audiences (too much meta). If you ONLY hire industry veterans who’d rather be doing their own arthouse magnum opuses, it can lead to a sterile/unfunny slog where the lore elements feel tacked-on, disingenuous and, often times, missing entirely on the points that made the originals work. Concerning original works: Take risks. Every project won’t be the next Toy Story, Star Wars, The Little Mermaid (89) or Iron Man, but when you allow talented people (not diversity hires) creative freedom and resources, there’s a greater chance of magic happening. Either way, for the love of deities, keep boards, sponsors, lobbyists, activists, HR, lawyers and investors out of the creative process! P.S. As a female viewer, I want good character dynamics. Romantic relationships are my copium, but it can be whatever well-developed relationship. Story is always second to character. As in, a bad plot can be saved by awesome characters, but not the other way around.
You’re absolutely right. Trouble is that they despise the nerds. Famously, they hate Henry Cavill, who reportedly got into numerous fights with Witcher writers because he knew and loved the source material. I’m furious about the upcoming Wheel of Time. So furious, I’m going to watch it and hurt my own feelings, lol. That showrunner is exactly the kind of person you’re describing, wanting to do his own art house magnum opus.
I'm convinced that most people like labours of love and can sense when a project is the result of a creative vision rather than a corporate checklist. I can 'get into' something that I normally don't have an interest in if the creators made it with passion and dedication.
I find it amusing that Disney felt the need to go out of their way to court the male audience at all. They already had us. Every boy fell in love with a Disney princess at one point. It's like Sailor Moon, we all secretly watched and we all know Mercury is best girl.
True. I'm a guy who was born in 1981. My friends and I were exposed to the Disney princess movies because of our little sisters and we enjoyed them. They're just good films regardless of who is "supposed" to like them
I never had a crush on a Disney princess, but they sure had me with the more guy movies like Lion King, Aladin, and Mulan. It's not like Disney had no make audience.
"Subverting expectations" gets a bad rap- understandably, given how clumsily it has been done in many recent examples. It's okay to surprise your audience, if the element you're removing is replaced with something that's at least equally compelling, and that makes sense within the story. Subverting for subversion's sake, and leaving little or nothing where an element was expected, leaves the entertainment equivalent of a deflated souffle.
@sterling7 It's the old adage: "Bad writing is giving your audience what they don't want. Good writing is giving the audience what they want. Great writing is giving the audience what they didn't realize they wanted" The problem is too many people are doing bad writing while attempting great writing. No one is trying for good writing.
I actually forgot about that one! If I recall, the actors themselves were the pinnacle of sexy at the time, I think that had something to do with it. Still a fun movie, though
I think if they continue doing Disney princess films then yeah, but they should keep things like marvel and star wars boy targeted, as they were intended to be that way when made
More princess films but from other cultures. Disney wants more rep? Well try, let me check my list... JAPAN, RUSSIA, FINLAND, SWEDEN, OR AFRICA, the last one especially since it's not just one country but NUMEROUS tribes and nations with various folklore Hell, they can just look back at Greece to see Atalanta hidden behind the IP power of Perseus, Theseus and Heracles. Atalanta was abandoned by her kingly father for being a girl, gets raised by bears then hunters, becomes a badass, has a male friend who respects her life choices and takes down a monstrous boar when among a large group of male hunters.
@@theanimeunderworld8338 agreed! They still need to make an English Disney princess, which I'm surprised they haven't since the English royal family used to be very popular. There is lots of room for material there, at least if they were going for a good story, not really rep. otherwise an Ejyption princess would be pretty cool. It would also be a chance for Disney to go as dark as dreamworks, since if they use Ejyption mythology as an inspiration, a lot of it has to do with the afterlife. Also, they would be able to add a lot of cat designs.
Agree with you both. This world has more stories than we could ever possibly get on screen, but they somehow think it’s clever to tell a previous story, but girl this time.
Same shit we're seeing in AAA game studios. They are chasing all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. Instead of focusing on quality and a good product, they are trying to milk money/time out of people. Where if they just put out a quality product, the money would flow and people would put in the hours willingly.
As soon as it drops on PS5, I’m going to be waist deep in Baldur’s Gate, and I’ll be making some videos about what Hollywood could learn from that game. Sounds like it’s a love letter to the audience
@@gregowen2022 considering everything I've seen on it, it is. And it's a one time purchase. If my laptop could handle it I would pick it up in a heartbeat. Used to love D&D when I was younger.
The irony is they say if you don’t mindlessly consume it’s because you’re a bigot/racist/etc HOWEVER for decades you’ve had characters like black Panther, ms marvel, etc. and the comics sold no problem! But despite Disney claiming to be open minded it took 10 and 11 years to get a black superhero or a female superhero in their movies.
remember when DC came out with Wonder Woman while Marvel fans were begging for a Black Widow movie for years by that time? That's when Marvel decided to do "HERo" marketing and have a "girls get it done" scene in End Game. They waited until Black Widow was dead.
Read Hugo and Nebula award winning books from before around 1990. The female characters are more comfortable in their sexuality and interactions with society. More recent female characters are less fleshed-out, almost less human. I think that it's becoming progressively more taboo to explore honestly the societal consequences of a fundamental worldview of conflict between men and women instead of cooperation.
They say there is a male loneliness epidemic. Perhaps it’s due to a few decades of telling them they are part of an evil patriarchy that is literally killing women around the globe?
@@gregowen2022 Not to mention 50 years of being told that we're worthless... and treated like it, too, all too often. IMO, hookup culture is a natural result of that. What guy wants to be Homer Simpson?
@@Nyet-Zdyes All the drama surrounding the Sad Puppies thing is a great illustration of how mixed up the awards and wokeness, etc. had all become. [As an aside: the subtle and not-so-subtle bias of the wikipedia article about sad puppies is another example of it.]
@@613harbinger316 I somehow missed all the sad puppies stuff... until quite recently. I had to look it up... someone had mentioned it... and that led me to the Wikipedia article. Just the name "sad puppies" sounds derisive... like stereotypical man-shaming. But, maybe I've seen so much of that crap in modern media that now I see it even when it wasn't intentional.
The simplest explanation is that they are taking the male audience for granted on Star Wars and Marvel. I participated in a pre-release screening of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie back in April 2014. When they were picking people for the focus group afterwards, they deliberately excluded me when I told them that I have been reading the comic books ever since Annihilation: Conquest. They did not care about my opinion of the movie because they knew that people like me would not only watch it day one, but we would also be the ones evangelizing it to all of our friends and family. I am known as they guy who follows Star Wars and Marvel, so my friends ask me if all of the new stuff is worth watching. And lately I have been saying no. I have been telling everyone that Secret Invasion is the worst thing they have ever put out - worse than even She-Hulk.
My husband and I used to go way out of our way to see the Phase 1&2 Marvel movies. We were actually in Australia when the 1st Thor movie came out, and we gave up sightseeing time to get to that theater. As soon as they started rolling out these toxic, manly, Mary Sue’s…we’ve legit lost ALL interest. They’ve ruined all the male characters left or replaced them with women. I can’t even remember the last Marvel movie I had any hope for, let alone was excited was coming, because they’re all the same: women all powerful, can do NO wrong; men all stupid, can do NO right.
I'm here for two reasons. You tend to go deeper into your perspectives than most other content creators, and you seem genuinely appreciative of the audience you have and the audience you're building. I respect both of those things.
I genuinely do appreciate that. That’s why I like YT so much. I don’t feel a good opinion can be expressed in 240 characters or whatever. Tonight I’m going to be running some ideas past everyone about how to do the community part better, I’m excited!
Female moviegoer here. I used to be a HUGE Marvel movie fan. I knew the Marvel movie schedule for the next two years and purchased my tickets a month in advance for every opening weekend. I bought every movie and watched and obsessed with my husband and son over every character detail. They began to lose me slightly with some of Phase 3, and I completely tuned out partway through Phase 4. They killed, destroyed, or made a joke of almost every character I loved (Capt. America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor, Loki, Nick Fury, Vision, Scarlet Witch) and became massively tiresome with their agenda pushing. Modern movies have lost me on all fronts! I love traditional Disney Princess flicks, and I adore Jane Austin. I'm also a fan of great, geeky, action flicks and a huge fan of women kicking butt...Black Widow in Phase 1 and 2, the original Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, Zoe and River in Serenity, to name a few. But these characters were fantastic! The story, dialogue, and character development were all there, and they were partners with excellent male characters who could hold their own (Zoe and River without Mal and Jayne, no!) The new female power characters with their pitiful male "leads" just don't cut it. Even Jane Austin is getting a woke-ified face lift. The last few years have left me with little to watch except old favorites.
Deconstructing someone to one characteristic, such as race, gender, orientation IS insulting; ppl R SO much more complex than that. "Work w/ themes, rather than blunt messages." GOD YES! Greg also hit on this aspect that is a HUGE Issue for me; which is the 'nerfing' & or 'dumbing down' of the male characters, seemingly only to make the female characters look SO much better. You should not need to put someone down in order for you to stand tall and represent!
The funny thing is that it isn’t working in regards to making women look strong, and why would it? Do I look strong when I can do something better than a child? Women on screen look stronger when paired with strong men because the audience has perspective to see strengths of both. The pettiness of Hollywood wanting to belittle men is ironically undercutting the message they want to send.
Thanks 4 the response Greg; I feel so excited that the guy who MADE the video responded to me!! (I do not do much messaging on scoial media, etc., so its SUPER exciting to me! LOVE your videos and ur personality as you make them ! Keep up the good work! PS I also really like ur huor and laugh out loud to many of ur 'jokes'. @@gregowen2022
I got to be honest, that period piece “Fast and Furious “ sounded interesting. I could see giving that a watch. Really all of those action romcom mashups…
K-drama has been doing this with amazing success for decades. I myself just recently began watching “Behind Your Touch” on Netflix. The story is about a veterinarian with psychic powers and how she teams up with a demoted cop in chase of a serial killer in a smallish rural town. It’s a happy blend of sci-fi, action, thriller, romance and comedy. And heck, it works really well. Even my romance-hating kid is completely hooked.
Excellent! You keep churning out great videos; I'm both envious and inspired! I'd add two (possible) corollaries to what you shared for attracting female audiences, and that's: 1) Have female leads or co-leads who are simply *well-written*, and (more importantly) 2) Adding a stronger character-driven elements to existing tropes. "No Country for Old Men" or "American Beauty" are examples of incredible character-driven stories within predominantly masculine plots. Neither of these are "pandering," and both have the benefit of also elevating the quality for their core audiences.
I completely agree. I think something they are missing is having strong women AND strong men. By beating the men down, the women don’t look strong in comparison just like I don’t look fast when I beat a toddler in a foot race. When strong women and men are put next to each other, it gives perspective that makes both look strong
Be honest. What you described is a lot of hard work and I think that’s the point. You have writers, directors & showrunners treating projects & IPs as opportunities for fan fiction. So what they care about or passionate about is what gets emphasis most often at the expense of storytelling, character development or world building. I think some creators (not all) don’t have the capability of doing the kind of work you’re talking about or more importantly lack the desire to better their writing. You’ve heard show runners from projects like the Witcher, Rings of Power, Marvel on Disney plus, etc. and directors & cast talk about their projects so let’s be honest. Too many have devoted themselves wholeheartedly and I mean devoted (as in they can’t help themselves) to virtue signaling, self inserts & heavy handed messaging to ever get better at their craft. They are telling the exact stories they want to tell. Hard truth is studios must hire better. Only way Hollywood redeems itself is to become a meritocracy again & hire people capable & committed to attracting consumers. Sorry for that rant has been in my head you unfortunately unlocked it lol.
I’m here for that rant. The upcoming Wheel of Time season 2 is going to send me into a fury. That show is pure fan fiction, relying completely on name recognition, and it makes me sick. They want the views, but they simultaneously hate the audience that made those properties great so they sneer in tweets while proclaiming who is going to be gay suddenly or act in a way that is completely anathema to the character.
I worked as a data analyst for a company whose influence can be seen on everything from RUclips to Amazon today. Anyway, the philosophy was explicitly anti-demographics. We didn't care what was between your legs or the amount of melanin in your skin. We focused on your behavior. What ads resonate with you, what did you purchase, what encourages you to spend more? The only time we broke things out by demographics was to keep the attention of the marketing team of our clients, we used nice bright colors and pretty pie charts. Everything else was about the data that actually contributed to the goal.
I think Disney are well aware of what girls and boys like. Hence the decision to purchase Marvel Studios and Lucas Film. However, what they are worried about is inclusion. Marvel is very popular and right now the danger to what is popular is cancel culture. They want to make sure that everyone is included in the popular Marvel conversation and when things are remade to re-energise a franchise and Disneys bank account they need to make sure they are including everyone from different genders and race. They are severely overthinking it and failing.
You can and should totally focus on a gender for your audience because men and women likes different things in aggregate. The problem comes when you tries to compromise and make the content "for everyone". Doing that will make sure that its bland for every demographic. Thats not to say that there are not movies that are good enough that they appeal to everyone. But that's usually just a result of it being extremely well made, not that it aimed to please everyone. Star Wars for example, is something that has almost universal appeal. But thats not how it was made. George Lucas aimed for the 12 year old boy demographic and got the rest of the people for free.
You are correct. The big question is: why hasn't Disney come to the same conclusion? They have billions, multiple studies, etc but they can't get the information that a simple RUclipsr can? I think they know this information but choose, for whatever reason, not to act upon it. So the big question would be, why don't they?
Part of the problem is money. Movies and shows have gotten EXPENSIVE. That means getting the largest possible audience in EVERY movie... which is NOT the same thing as making different movies for different audiences. It's not even greed, not necessarily, although I'm not saying greed isn't a part of it, either. Part of it is the modern narrative, that men and women are the same. We are not... but they don't want to admit that.
The reality is they're never gonna convert generic women to marvel or star wars fans, because no matter how much "girl stuff" they try to put in, those women still won't be fans of the genres. Like you said, the women who do see these films were probably already fans of the genres to begin with, so it's better to focus on quality. "You catch more flies with honey," as they say.
There were women who already enjoyed Star Wars, Marvel, Star Trek etc...as THEY WERE. You canNOT metamorphise franchises, some of which are over 50 YEARS OLD, to become something they are NOT within the span of 10 years....🤦♂️ What Disney NEEDED to do...was make NEW CONTENT. But that's TOO HARD for these incompetent people. This is also a problem affecting the rest of hollywood which is why it lost 1.5 BILLION across two months💀. Nothing is wrong with diversity...once you MAKE SOMETHING NEW and dont BASTARDIZE iconic pieces of media to give people SCRAPS. You know like the 2000s and late 90s did where it had a bunch of diversity but the characters just felt like PEOPLE because they were MADE for those respective worlds and weren't HAMFISTED into pre established franchises. Crazy part is I didn't realise exactly how much diversity there was in the 2000s until recently cause that was NOT the point. The point was just making ENTERTAINING media. Man I miss the 2000s😭🤦♂️
That’s a solid point. We had some diversity, perhaps it could have been improved, but when that goal became the number one priority, everything else suffered.
Alex Kurtzman and his pals massacred Star Trek. In the past the crews would solve problems with intelligence and teamwork. Now Michael Burnham can solve everything by crying and whispering all her dialogue.
@@gregowen2022 Exactly. Diversity was steadily coming in and some REALLY good diversity too. And no one was accused of isms when they didnt enjoy a show...especially since MOST shows back then were enjoyable💀
5:05 Disney: We need more men to watch us. Us: Make a John Carter movie. Disney: Uhhh, I'll think about it... MARVEL IS UP FOR SALE. Iger: Marvel is up for sale, eh? We'll just buy them and bring the boys over that way. Us: But John Carter... Disney: SHUT UP! You'll watch Marvel anyway. FuckJohn Carter! Us: 😢
People have been saying what you said for a long time now and, so far, Disney hasn't listened. It's still all about (say this in a loud, ominous, reverberated tone) "THE MESSAGE".
I am a woman... I am a fan of the classic Star Wars. You know why? Because the characters were believable - they were human (well... displayed very human characteristics, even if they were droids, Wookiees, Mon Calamari or something else entirely). They tried, failed, learned and grew... they were aspirational. The EU introduced more characters and more places... The characters all had believable goals and arcs and stories. They didn't always succeed first time, or even second time. They had depressive moments, moments of pure fear or anger or exhilaration. Then came The Force Awakens. Great - a new Star Wars film. They introduced Rey, Finn and Poe. Rey took on a bad guy at his own game, that he's been practising for years and years, while she's just barely learned the rules. And she wins, no effort. Poe, an X-wing pilot, gets belittled and talked down to by the worst excuse foy a military officer in this galaxy or the GFFA, who can't hold a simple briefing (something shown in every single one of the original trilogy, BTW). Finn, a black stormtrooper who switches sides, is basically only there for the posters and is completely sidelined. And Disney never put the original gang back together onscreen - and now nobody can unless they employ AI or something, which would be an absolute mockery. I walked out of the cinema and I will never pay another penny to Disney for any of their Star Wars stuff because it sucks. There's no heart to it, no emotion. Women have to put men down just to be able to climb over their prostrate bodies to be as good as them - something Leia Organa never needed to do, not once. I wanted to be Leia, or at least, to emulate her courage, her tenacity, her sheer grit and determination. I don't want to be Rey, I don't want my niece to grow up thinking Rey or Admiral Holdo or anyone else, is worth emulating, in any way shape or fashion. PS. Women don't have magical powers just because they have boobs.
When it comes to superhero related movies, some of the source material has female characters. They're like the female counterpart of the male characters. For instance, there's Thor and The Mighty Thor; Spider-Man and Spider-Woman; Superman and Supergirl; Batman and Batwoman; etc. Marvel gets accused of gender-swapping, yet some people don't bat an eye with DC. Coming from a lore standing, isn't it expanding upon the written lore than gender-swapping? Like, we've seen so many Batman movies. Why can't we have a Batwoman movie? Oh wait. There was a TV series of her and it was horrible. It was too political and wasn't fun. What about Supergirl? There was an old movie. It wasn't received well but I enjoyed it because she's my favorite Kryptonian. So, in conclusion agreeing with one good notable point: don't look at your audience gendered and make fun stuff worth watching. But on a business aspect, some things do have a target demographic. Why can't we have the same model with movies? For example, the Barbie movie was meant for a female audience and somehow did good. Yet some guys also watched that film. Am I missing something or am I dumb? lol
I disagree, I'd love to see more genres mixed into romcoms, specifically Hallmark movies. Here's my modest proposal: A successful, career-driven reporter leaves her high powered CEO boyfriend back in the big city, coming to a small town in Kansas for a quaint, quiet Christmas. She ends up falling for a small town farmboy local, who teaches her the virtues of truth, justice, and the American Way. Her boyfriend, overly controlling, decides to come through said town with an army of robots, so it's up to the local guy to change into his blue tights and save Smallville from LexCorp's evil robots.
Xexe, M-She-U has really caught up as a phrase. Nerdrotic should be proud of that lol. Anyway, they are trying to replace the audience. Which in a core isnt so bad(in a sense that they want other demographic as well) but it just doesnt work. They builded success on male audience. Replacing them, esspecially by pooping on them, will only chase your existing audience. And your new audience may never even be there. Because your product doesnt appeal to them. No matter how much people are trying to erase the gender differences, they are still there. I wont have too much luck by trying to make women to watch a Schwarzenegger movie from 90s. Even if we replace him for, lets say Ronda Rousey. That movie audience would still be dominantly male. Do you know why? Because it appeals to males by default. So appealing to almost non-existing fanbase, would be a disaster because they wont watch. And you would alienate your existing one. For example, video games are trying for years to get that big female audience. And while some research says how women are even in majority of video games audience, they are non-existing in any bigger AAA video game. Because they mostly play mobile games and stuff like Animal Kingdom. Even Brie Larson plays that one. Every major game doesnt have a women players at all and they are a very small part of gamers. Competative scene is dominantly male. Because stuff like shooters, even stuff like MOBA isnt attractive to them no matter how much devs are trying to make it so. They are less competative and not interested in baseless action. Its just not the target demographic for the product. But for example stuff like "Barbie" is. Its a female-centric property that everyone knows. So ofcourse it does good with women.
11:52 There is a reason why timeless stories are timeless - they fill a hole and provide satisfaction. Lucas learned this when he read Campbell's writings about "The Hero's Journey." Both men and women resonate with such concepts psychologically. As a Christ-follower, I believe this speaks to a "God-shaped hole," and successful stories address this deep need. When we deviate from these truths, we end up with a very unsatisfying story that leaves the entire audience confused, dissatisfied, and unfulfilled. A good story doesn't need to be "Biblical" but it does need to follow precepts of how we are made. Otherwise we end up with junk!
"It was the most pandering attempt to get women into the theatres since Magic Mike". Here's the problem. Magic Mike worked, Rey Palpatine didn't. Women do not want to bang a female power fantasy. Can't say I blame them...
I've seen 6 of the last 10 Marvel movies, and sadly, I could sleep through the others and still know how they ended. Besides that, I only watched the first 3 shows because the rest were basically saying I'm the villain and a bad person, but the people doing bad things are just "misunderstood."
I watch you because you're smart, funny, and articulate. I hate box ticking, pandering, and virtue signalling. I'm old enough to remember real art, and I almost despair for what tries to pass for entertainment these days.
heck, an example Toei kept the formula of the Kamen Rider franchise, which is boy centric, and it somehow gained a huge female fanbase, particularly from moms
Well comics have largely appealed to boys and men, except for Archie comics. The major issue with all these superhero films is about how much do we want our lavish fantasies grounded in reality?
Woman here. Most of the channels I watch have most male audiences. If those channels suddenly decide to pivot to women, chances are they would no longer appeal to me, and I would stop watching. Cater to the audience that enjoys the genre. No one is out there pushing to make Hallmark movies more male friendly. These studios also don't seem to know what women like. Chicks generally enjoy hot guys on screen and a love story. But they make these female-targeted movies loveless.
Expanding the franchise makes sense; however, it seems like they’re doing it at the expense of the male audience. It’s like taking something from someone just to give it to someone else…who doesn’t really want it as much as the person that you took it from in the first place.
Targeting women isn't the problem. Princess stories target women and action movies often target men. The issue is when you decide that you are what the audience is waiting for, not the story. As a freelancer and ghostwriter, I can't tell you how many times I've had to fight writers and clients about what needs to stay in for story versus ego. Disney's problem is ego and bad writing.
The point you made about them not buying a studio that already had a majority female audience like that makes sense to me I don't know why they didn't just try that first before doing what they're doing now to me that would make more sense to do that
"How can they expand their audience?" Well ... first off they'd have to work on getting their previous audiences back. _Then_ they can maybe look at "growth" lmao 😅
Really, you really believe that The damage has been done n it's deep It'd take a bit of humility for Disney to course correct n evidence of this will take at least 6/7 years to manifest
Part of what he is saying is true, but the elephant in the room is that A) throwing a chick into an Alpha Male's role always fails. On the other hand, Greg is correct to say that for women it is about the characters. I know this because when I started my writing career I ventured into the Harlequin Romance novel field. I did this because on TV all the news magazine shows were trumpeting the LARGE shortage of novels to satisfy the fanbase of those books. I read 4 novels back to back and realized there was a pattern, and it was all concerned with character 'feelings'--for example, before the first kiss you have to have no less than 5 pages of the woman thinking to herself how WONDERFUL this kiss will be. How it will lead to so much happiness. Then 3 pages of the man thinking how he is about to rock this woman's world with just a kiss. THEN you have to have a -page and a half of her pushing him away before the kiss. She has to think of all the regrets she will have if she gives up whatever mission she was on at the time. So, yeah, women like characters, BUT unlike what Greg said they DO want to see White Alpha Males being MEN--we see this in the success of films such as Top Gun Maverick, Future War, Extraction1 & 2, and so many others. These scripts are well done so that they hark back to TRADITION and do not make the leading Male subservient to women.
I’ve read some Laverle Spencer and it follows that pattern to a T, lol. And you’re right, let’s not act like it was an accident that Fabio was on every romance novel cover for a decade. Men might be more visual, but women aren’t blind either.
In my opinion the Marvel and Star Wars franchises can rebound if they go back to and stay with the source material of which there is a ton of. It makes no sense to not use it and attempt to remake the wheel.
I cannot believe the MCU has pretty much stopped adapting stories from the comics. And on top of that they're pushing characters that have never been popular in the first place. Although I actually think it would kind of funny if they made a movie based on America Chavez's *atrocious* first solo series. It would be like an MCU version of _The Room_
That was a solid movie and I think actually worked! Looks like it made a bunch. However, I have to chalk some of that up to casting. That was back when they made movies with the best looking people they could find and, shockingly, people tend to like that. Also, freaking Vince Vaughn, an absolute gem
What makes me want to watch movies or TV shows is the characters. I love seeing romances blossom on screen and well written characters work on their flaws. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the classic CGI Barbie movies are some of my favorite stories because they have a variety of likeable and interesting characters. Mariposa, Princess Annalise, and Twilight Sparkle were some of my favorites because they reflected my interests and flaws. Seeing them improve over time made them more real to me. Another character I related to a lot was Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) He was the oldest, a leader, someone who made mistakes and learned from them. This is what draws me into shows. The most recent movies I liked were ATSV, The Bad Guys, and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish because they were character driven.
You don’t court demos because you’re in the building/survival phase. Once you’ve got executives who’ve never had to create like their life depends on it, working at an established multibillion dollar studio, they can try all sorts of stupid things that they will never be completely on the hook for if fails and everything is so cushioned they’ll often never KNOW when it fails. And if for some crazy reason the studio goes under, they’ll be working at another studio the next year. Competition baby, film/tv industry needs way more of it.
Yes! Gregulars, and I love it. Something that gives me great hope is that the audience still has power. They are chasing the ESG score because it gets them investment dollars, and yet it's not working. People are fleeing Disney stock, it's losing billions in valuation.
Hi XD Woman here who both likes your videos and likes the MCU. Putting a woman as the lead did not make me like the movies more. I liked Captain America, Spider Man and Iron Man well enough already ^-^
Two decades ago Disney thought their MALE viewership was unacceptable. Why we got Hercules and Tarzan. And, also why Disney bought Star Wars and Marvel...so they had "boy" IPs, to go with the Disney "girl" IP. So, it is just so weird that they are choosing to feminize their "boy" brands, without adding any male energy to their "girl" brand.
Marvel 2023 is the same Ultra Competent Quasie-Lesbians escorting an idiot man-child across Space, Time & Interdimentional reality. They've turned Marvel movies into 2hr episodes of *_Everybody Loves Raymond_*
Actually, Rey Palpatine was all Kathleen Kennedy's idea, not because she was trying to target the female audience, but because she wanted to insert herself into the franchise, same with Helena in Indiana Jones
The narcissism, and it's appendage agenda, has become the standard operating procedure in the industry. Annoying self-insert characters. Taking others stories they don't like, but with a pre-built fanbase, and bastardizing them with their own terrible self-inserted stories. Pomposity was let off the leash.
@NefariousKoel Rey was such a self insert that she didn't even have a name until the very last minute, the script literally referred to her as "Female Protagonist" lol
Well, get a crew of passionate & talented people who cares deeply about what they produced. Tell story instead of stitching tick boxes. They seem complacent at the moment because of previously success. The Disney branch is still strong evidently shown in box office take. Unless they don’t really care about box office and use movies and a stepping stone to sell merchandise like TMNT and Transformers. It is so weird to buy Lucas but don’t focus on the legacy world . Why buy Marvels and kill of most of the crowd favourites. I recall after endgames I thought gosh they really destroy the avengers. Kill off all the good characters. They have nothing left. Now with Snow White, they attempt to destroy their own foundation. Snow White is a timeless story that I love. I am horrifying when Rachel said oh Snow White is a cooperate woman who wants to be a leader with no pursuing of true love ???? 😂😂😂😂
They can expand the audience by not destroying old stories (I mean shit, they destroyed Roadie Rodes in Ironman going back *TEN YEARS* for no reason) and by making their new stories about the characters and motivations of those characters, instead of superficial bullshit and flashy CGI blurr-battles. I am a man. I enjoy visuals, but on that score Disney and all live-action stuff in the last few years have failed miserably in any case. They don't do world-building concept art at all. They give a CGI team about 1 week to do 8 weeks worth of work, underpay them, and then brow-beat them when it isn't good enough. As a result, they hire people who are desperate for work and treat them like short-order cooks when they should be hiring chefs and paying them well and giving them the resources and time they need to do a good job.
I mean... I know it was a joke, but those "male-centric rom-coms" you proposed sounded pretty great. I'm not generally a fan of rom-coms, but I'd definitely watch any of those.
It will never not be ironic that Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm to appeal to boys who don't like princess musicals... and then immediately began killing both properties by trying to make the princess musical demo the audience for Star Wars and Marvel.
Maybe Disney could learn from RUclipsrs. Edit: I liked Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter because the premise was silly and also interesting, and the movie was entertaining to me. Plus, tall, stoic "Honest Abe" dishing out the pain to some bloodsuckers was stupid and funny as hell at the same time. (I haven't seen P&P&Z yet.) I was trying to picture Daniel Day-Lewis in the role, and that made it even more hilariously ridiculous.
Okay, if you want to handle 'mantles/legacy characters' well, Kamen Rider Hibiki handled it well with Kamen Rider Todoroki and Zanki. Basically, Todoroki was meant to take on Zanki's mantle but in the end, decides to be his own man.
Unironically, I think the reason we have an MCU was because Iron Man was a well-written and deep character that was also approachable in terms of plot. It's easy to forget there was a bland Hulk movie in the early days that is basically ejected from the MCU for it's blandishness. If they didn't focus on making interesting, sympathetic characters with strong and clear plots in the early days, the MCU would have died off quickly, I think. Now, we get lectures, quips, and homework to follow convoluted plots and absolutely no character depth.
Stop replacing and race-swapping redheads. I dont know why Hollywood likes to do this, but just stop it. One day I would love to see a Luke Skywalker meet his hot redhead wife, Mara Jade. (and it's OK to just re-cast Luke. Sebastian Stan is a good pick, stop with the CGI crap already) Get back to good stories everyone wants to watch and stop shoving "the message" down everyone's throats. It's not hard. There is a reason EVERYBODY went to watch Star Wars. It was fun, with interesting, unique characters, good dialogue, world building and story, and appealed to everyone! You want profitable, this will do it!
Very simple just write good sh*t. Underworld 1 and 2 female pretty entertaining. The strong woman archetype has been around for decades but done better in the 80s and 90s. Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese anyone just go back to the future
They need to chase good writing.
Now's my chance!
Yes.
I hate to see folks lose jobs, but right now might be their best chance to at least stop chasing poor writing, which is still a net positive
They cost way more than the bad ones who are willing to work for peanuts.
@@Doomwolf82002 Or use AI writers.
I don't think they are chasing female audience. I think they are targeting ESG scores, and as everyone knows, the moment measure becomes a goal it ceases to be a good measure.
indeed
Very true. I want to believe that 2022 and 23’s losses will change their thinking, but my more rational side knows that just won’t happen. Guess we’ll just have to catalog their demise here in videos and laugh together
I don't think it's about ESG scores; I think it's, one, to keep Occupy Wall Street dead and, two, because rentier capitalism is a hedonistic system.
@@gregowen2022 I do see it happening with Amazon and Netflix, but Disney is all about politics so they will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to reality. They want to change people, not give them what they want. They want to change what we want, which is just insane and a recipe for failure.
@@gregowen2022 A tip to improve ALL of your videos...
VOLUME!!!!!
Get that 5h!t under CONTROL.
When you talk softly/calmly, you make people turn up the volume to be able to hear you... THEN you YELL... and blow out their eardrums.
Some people are listening with headphones.
If they did the female leads more like Katara, Suki, Azula and Toph from Avatar, being more expressive, complex, stronger through training, funny, THEN they can have better chances
@@ILoveMonorails96 because avatars also apply to video game characters too
Because James Cameron had been holding the copyright to the Avatar name decades before he even began filming.
Cut to Star Wars fans bitching about Ahsoka.
My dogs are named Katara and Azula. #randomfactsyoudontcareabout
When Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm, I thought that they had almost all of childhood wrapped up. Disney Princesses targeted to "girls" and superhero targeted to "boys". Instead, Disney tried to hit all the targets and missed most of them.
Stormtrooper aim
@@noturbusiness9736Virgin Star Wars Stormtroopers vs Chad German Stormtroopers
Like those silly missiles in anime that twist around flying everwhere and end up hitting everything _but_ the one thing that needed to be 'sploded.
Its why Ahsoka has to fail
I've yet to see them target boys. They just took their boy shows and added them to the girl pile.
So when I chase women it’s a problem, but when Disney…
Hahaha, you just don’t have the right setting. Try getting a boat, then there’s the implication….
“It’s ok when they do but it a problem when I do it fuck em “ Finesse 2Tymes
Female Gregular here, and longtime movie and tv fanatic.
Putting a woman in a lead role does not make me automatically want to see the film or show. Putting a woman in a lead role of an action or superhero flick is definitely not going to make me want to see it.
Women like people, men like things. Which is why the male audience flocks to westerns, action, etc…
Females like people, characters, relationships. The romantic comedy and drama genre has been completely ignored by Disney in their Marvel/Lucas film phase. And that is why they don’t have a female audience.
I would much rather see a smokin hot, sexy macho man lead character in a good story with a hero journey or romance than a five foot tall, 100 pound female with cgi muscles defeating all the toxic male villains. Yawn.
Fantastic video as always, Greg. But Seriously, get out of my head!
Theres also a difference in how boys and girls play with toys. Lego did a study like a decade ago and went ahead and created Lego Friends after what they discovered.
Boys BECOME the characters so essentially Batman...is BATMAN. He moves lile BATMAN
Girls on the other hand make the characters into THEMselves which is why you see Batman having a tea party when the sister takes her brothers action figures😂🤷♂️
@@no.1spidey-fan182As a gregular (heh, love that moniker!) myself, it’s safe to assume that my brain is more masculinely aligned (as the vast majority of his audience is male, and RUclips itself is a more male-dominant platform - so female gregulars are a nieche within a nieche).
Anywho. I’ve always had a huge distaste for self-insert fanfiction. It peeves me to no end that this phenomenon has bled into mainstream entertainment (She-Hulk and Geriatric Jones being just two of the most glaring examples).
But as the writers have been women, and if the Lego study holds any water, it all makes sense now. 🤯
I can’t leave! Then I wouldn’t know which videos you want next!
For real though, people act like it’s so insulting to say what you said “women like people men like things”. It’s the freaking truth and I don’t understand how it’s a bad thing. Rather than try to change people’s very nature, why not just work with them as they are? It would certainly be more profitable
Spidey, I’ve seen that study mentioned before, but you reminded me it’s worth me doing a video because it needs to be repeated often. Lego had the right idea: work with the customers you have, not the fantasy customers you wish you had.
Men like things, yes, but westerns are about character and story, told simply. Action movies that are good are about the same things. There is action, but it serves a purpose. It isn't just brainlessly thrown in there. Good examples are Extraction 2, The Terminal List, or the Empire Strikes back (though I think Return of the Jedi's dual is by far my favorite fight scene).
Bad examples are literally all of Nick Cage's "Renfield," or most of Jamie Foxx's "Day Shift" movie. Stupid motivations, dumb characters (who are supposed to somehow be badasses), and fight scenes that involve cameos and satire and gore instead of good motivations and real stakes.
Meaning in all cases, the reason Disney is failing is bad writing and, as Greg mentioned, they are targeting genitalia instead of people.
I think this is why so many female fans preferred Loki over Thor. The family tragedy and drama made an interesting story and once Marvel threw Loki away like trash a lot of interest died
Agreed, Loki was a much more complex character, it’s no wonder he was a favorite
That's actually a very accute observation.
Yup. My sister was terrified that Marvel was going to kill Loki in Infinity Wars and refused to watch the movie.
I lied and told her he was one of the few that survived.
Yeah.... well she enjoyed the movie but she was not happy 😂
Later, she tried watching the Loki series and got even more pissed off that he was pretty much replaced by Lady Loki version in his own show.
She's since just refused to watch any more Loki and move on to something else, even though reviews for the second season of Loki were stellar
Female audiences have also flocked towards primarily male-dominated franchises in the past few years.
I recall Transformers: Prime and the 2012 TMNT cartoon having a pretty solid female fanbase, and those two shows were pretty well-written.
Both of those show had great plots and concepts for the boys, and great characters for the girls.
It also helps that they're multi-million dollar franchises with buttloads of merchandise.
The thing I see that's prevalent is that Disney, being the top dog in entertainment for a century, is just doing the equivalent of throwing darts while blindfolded at a dartboard with random audiences to cater to. Usually, one audience is good enough. There's an audience for K-dramas, there's an audience for black comedians, and there's an audience for superheroes. The fact that they're trying to appeal to ALL those demographics and just end up with nothing is strange to see.
Sort of reminds me of the ping pong ball in the bottles game you see at fairs. You toss a ball randomly and even though there are many bottles, the ball bounces around and lands in none of them
Whoa, whoa, whoooa... All I heard is that we need to make 72,000(ish) burner accounts to see Greg do a make-up tutorial...
Hahaha, for that amount of dedication, I’d basically owe you one!
I’m a Filipino woman in her 50s. If Disney made a movie about someone like me as a superhero, I wouldn’t watch it. I don’t need representation- I just need a story told well. You do not need to shove in POCs and women to make me watch a good story, but if you hand me crap like She-Hulk and expect me to be grateful for it, I’m pulling the plug like I did in the first episode because it was terrible and cringe. If Disney wants advice, here it is: no more IPs, tell original stories that follow the Hero’s Journey (the lead character can be a man or woman but it has to make sense for the story). Get some boomers in the writing room who have actually delivered beloved movies and TV shows who can mentor these millennial writers, who don’t know wtf they’re doing so that the art of good writing isn’t lost.
Then follow up with media training for their filmmakers and actors so that they can be pro whatever their agendas are but not anti- anything. These actors need to learn how to be truly inclusive of ALL of their audience, in case they actually make a good story, so that the audience isn’t given a reason to write off the movie before they see it. And if they can't be inclusive, then just learn to STFU so we don't hate them to the point that we root for their failure and revenge boycott their movies. Look at that Rachel Zegler girl: a few dumb comments and even without the ugly takes on feminism everyone hates her because she's that girl you went to school with who says what she wants people to think, but she says it in a hateful way but she acts nice so you can't really attack her for anything so instead you just avoid her. She's one of the popular girls but IRL she doesn't really have friends she can count on, because the kids in her group know she'll throw them under the bus as soon as it's popular to do so. Someone get this girl into media training, stat!
A diversity of opinion and experience, not just a diversity of surface attributes. And inclusive of their current customers. Great points all around.
Filipina here, too. And, I have the same sentiments. 🍻
I agree, a superhero movie about someone like me would be a comedy. Who wants to see that!
What Disney and the WOKE miss people watch American movies for the WESTERN movie not South American Europe Aisa or Africa Nollywood, Euro nations have there own, Bollywood & South Korea/Japan do every well making movies for "there people" and as a Brt id be a lil shocked if Squid Game II was full of white guys wouldnt be what im looking for im looking to see if The lad can bring them down.. Sadly the woke are bad people who only see skin deep and need themselfs in everything .. I hope none own a mirror ;')
100% agree, well stated! Cheers. :)
do you know what else women like? Men. it was painful to watch all the neutered and pathetic men they put on screen. watching them assassinate beloved male character in some disgusting attempt to hand over all the power to the women was painful to watch.
Right? Even most women aren’t interested in that. What’s empowering about watching someone get beaten down for you?
@@gregowen2022 I think the comment and you are right on the nose that good team work is far more appealing.
Exactly! Stories for women does not equal female leads. Sometimes it's the exact opposite.
Anyone who likes a specific character is not going to enjoy seeing that character be humiliated.
There are exceptions to this (Three Stooges), but the exceptions are so rare and in such specific circumstances, that this ought to be an almost cardinal rule.
My sister told me she wasn't an Avengers fan until she heard that Chris Hemsworth was cast as Thor.
Manga already does that correctly by targeting each demographic specifically by the things that appeals to them most, Shonen manga aimed at young boys focuses on themes of friendship and hero's journey mixed with flashy combat and over the top dynamic action, Shoujo manga aimed at young girls focuses on fantasy, romances and drama with a small bit of action here or there to ramp up the tension, Seinen manga aimed at older males focuses on more mature content and much darker edgier stories involving all kinds of gore, violence, nudity, ... etc etc, Josei manga focuses more on more adult relationships compared to Shoujo, marriage and relationships, steamy love stories and gossip, etc.
So basically they are covering all their bases and not leaving anybody behind, and there are no barriers whatsoever for a male boy to read a Shoujo manga or a female writer to write a Shonen manga (Full Metal Alchemist, one of the best Shonen manga of all time is written and illustrated by a woman), and the common thing between all these demographic focused manga is that the reader always comes first, and their vote is what keeps the story going in many cases (as in literal vote, not just voting with their wallet, manga includes user surveys that you fill and send back, and manga companies take it very seriously since various manga comes out routinely collected in a single big book like Shonen Jump, generally speaking they are the exact opposite of western comics and Hollywood who antagonize and hate their long time customers and fans).
The problem here with Hollywood and western comics as well is that they aren't really chasing demographics at all, they are pretending to, they are just narcissists who are writing these movies and comics for themselves, which is the main reason quality suffers a lot, not to mention they appeal to a very narrow niche (themselves) abandoning and insulting their fans in the process, so while I don't mind at all if Disney makes female focused movies (older Disney movies already fulfilled that) but that's not actually what they are doing now.
And you know you have an artist with genuine skill at story telling when their next project is completely different, but still excellent. The artist for Full Metal Alchemist also did Silver Spoon, which is about freakin' farming, farm-life, farm-drama and high-school drama. Watched the anime, loved it, and am now reading the manga, and loving it. When the focus is on quality, you get quality across the demographic board. When the focus isn't on quality, you get modern Western comics.
@@613harbinger316 Exactly 👍
Is nobody gonna tell him how many Seinen writers were influenced by Shoujo and Josei?
Don't get me wrong, I like a good looking male lead as much as the next girl, but if he's JUST eye candy, I will click away before my popcorn is done popping.
Also after that targeting a specific audience is dumb which you started very nicely. But I will say one thing I'd like to see as a woman, is more female characters accomplishing this through... Traditionally female things. For example, I have been burned multiple times by stories that boasted a female protagonist who was a seamstress and had to use her skills in a competition that had grand stakes or something. Only for the protag to end up going on an Odyssey like quest to acquire her materials, or it turning into more about crafting clothes with magic, than ACTUAL sewing. I mean come on, show me her bargaining to get the fabric she needs or having to make do with scraps. Show me her laboring over embroidery, and each stitch has to be right because she's worked secret messages into the designs or something. I say this as a seamstress. But I feel like this like painting, drawing, baking, what have you are just gimmicks to give characters.
Finally, can confirm if you started doing makeup videos, I would pass on them
That would be so nice to see. Hollywood is terrified to show feminine traits as good because, I don’t know, they think they are somehow lesser? I honestly don’t get it. They constantly show masculine stuff in a strong light, even if it’s women doing it, but downplay feminine things. In their effort to make women look strong, they are sending the message that femininity is weak, it’s so backward.
@@gregowen2022 - It's not just Hollywood. The whole social zeitgeist has been focused, for years now, on implanting the idea that feminine qualities are bad and that women should be more like jerk men. Ironically under the guise of "feminism". They HAVE been trying to create the audience they want by programming easily influenced people to believe that. It has apparently worked to some small extent, but not nearly enough to keep that train rolling at the moment. Of course, that's why so much of it is targeted at programming kids and young adults.
@@gregowen2022 One wonders what kind of message, if any, they INTENDED to send with WandaVision.
Something along the lines of wanting a family is bad...
Honestly, people need to sever their nostalgia with Disney. Disney is not worth saving just let them die and let other people pick up the franchises that they on who actually care or just leave the franchise is where they are where are the fans will keep them alive down the road or just find something new.
Of all the YT channels bashing Disney, you're one of the few pointing out the core problem. Buying boy brands to diversify, then making them female centric. When Mattel wanted to replicate Barbie sales but with boys they didn't hand Barbie a machine gun they created GI Joe.
just one problem, GI joe was created by Hasbro.
No, that was Hot Wheels. The thought was "boys like cars." There was already a brand that sold scale-model cars to boys, Matchbox, and they were doing gangbuster business. Mattel created Hot Wheels to eat into that market (quite successfully. They wound up buying Tyco, the company what owns Matchbox).
Only know this because I were contracted to do some work for Mattel in El Segundo. They have a Hot Wheels Museum with the actual cars they made Hot Wheels toys from. ALL the cars.
The Princess Bride was an excellent example of a rom-com that still works today.
as you wish...
That's not a rom-com by any metric I ever heard of. It's a highly meta, tongue in cheek fairy tale with some swashbuckler elements. (Check out the 1941 Corsican Brothers for the original of the "mostly dead" subplot.) It has a good and highly idealistic romance track (not much played for comedy, compared to the rest of the film) because that kind of romance comes standard with both fairy tales and swashbucklers.
Can't successfully target an audience if they didn't care to pay attention in the first place. Great video!
Agreed. Just a terrible strategy all the way around
24 year old woman here. I grew up on Avatar the Last Air Bender, Marvel Movies and the cartoons, Transformers shows, DC cartoons, and I a lot of animated Disney movies. A lot of the things I just mentioned are more boy oriented but I loved them.
As a constant female viewer of yours , I watch you because of your opinion and how it aligns with mine usually or you talk about something of interest to me! It has nothing to do with gender , that being said .... My mom likes to remind me that I look like a frilly teenage girl but my media taste is 12 year old boy 😂 ( star wars , marvel, Tmnt , anime, gaming )
Interestingly, many of the historically high-grossing films had female leads (e.g. GONE WITH THE WIND, SOUND OF MUSIC, even STAR WARS). However, they were unquestionably (& quietly) feminine, with strong leading men to complement them (e.g. Rhett Butler). Ditto for famous novels like JANE EYRE, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Hard to imagine Elizabeth Bennett without Mr. Darcy, or Catherine without Heathcliff.
The current filmmakers (or the suits) just don't seem to "get it." Or they refuse to "get it." They seem obsessed with pseudo-male characters and agenda-filled scripts.
Content for men is generally open for everyone. The majority of male-centric media also has a decent portion of female audiences.
Content for women is for women only. The majority of women-centric media is unwatchable to most male audiences.
It’s like fitness centers/gyms: There are plenty of LA Fitness and Planet Fitness gyms out there and men predominantly comprise their memberships. Meanwhile, there are female-only gyms like Curves and Women’s World.
Disney has DESTROYED its bases. They had cornered the market for little girls with their Princesses, Tinker Belle, & live action girl shows.
Star Wars, Marvel, & Indiana Jones had HUGE male audiences and fandoms.
They even had “Family” audiences by providing “safe” child-oriented content that parents could feel fine with using to babysit their kids.
Now? All the Princess stuff is full of masculine female characters so a lot of girls that liked to be girls are turned off. All the feminized Star Wars/Marvel/Indiana Jones stuff has completely turned off male audiences with any level of self-respect. Finally, the “family” content has been flooded with gross sexuality and rainbow crap so those audiences are gone too.
Good job, Disney. 👍
yep. male spaces are always infiltrated by women. Women's spaces are left alone since we can have some peace. (obviously not talking about the weirdos using loopholes to get into women's locker rooms -- by request of women BTW)
Oh god. Once a female friend of mine asked me to go to a Curves to get her an application because she couldn't get to it that day. The stares I got when I walked in there were genuinely frightening. (And, no, I wasn't looking for a loophole, lol. I sincerely had no idea at the time that it was a women-only gym - though now that I think about it, I wonder if she did and thought it would be funny.)
It's true. Just look at anime/manga demographics.
Shounen (teen boys - young adults) is by the most popular with numerous iconic franchises loved by millions. And of course, most of that is battle shounen and battle shounen adjacent stuff like Dr. Stone, Death Note, etc.
Next is Seinen (adult men), which while less popular than shounen, is still very popular and widely discussed with a handful of iconic franchise and plenty of very popular series.
Third is shojo (girls) which is very rarely discussed outside of the a small handful of iconic/notable series (Sailor Moon, Madoka, Precure, Fruits Basket). Even then, a good chunk of those are battle focused magical girl series, which are essentially the shojo equivalent to battle shounen.
Lastly, there's Josei (adult women), which I have literally never seen anyone talk about outside of two instances this year of people specifically talking about demographics.
You can actually see this trend in the Magic Mike Series. They all had hot sexy guys stripping and dancing, but the first had a decent story involving more meaningful character interactions. The first movie was also the most successful of the bunch.
"My Adventures with Superman" is exactly the cooperation and teamwork between the Super powered male and the plucky, brave, non powered female lead.
In almost every major fight Lois helps Superman while not over shadowing him. She serves as a distraction, or gets the macguffin while Superman is the distraction and other such things.
It really is an awesome show where Superman gets to be Superman and Lois gets to be Lois, both are competent, neither "dunk" on the other, and they're both clearly in love with each other.
It's a show my wife and I love to watch together.
Concerning existing IP: Disney can expand their audience by hiring nerdy writers who respectfully know the lore inside and out and pair them with experienced directors or showrunners who have a vetted grasp on what works logistically, commercially, etc.
If you ONLY hire nerds, you will probably end up with something that isn’t very accessible to general audiences (too much meta). If you ONLY hire industry veterans who’d rather be doing their own arthouse magnum opuses, it can lead to a sterile/unfunny slog where the lore elements feel tacked-on, disingenuous and, often times, missing entirely on the points that made the originals work.
Concerning original works: Take risks. Every project won’t be the next Toy Story, Star Wars, The Little Mermaid (89) or Iron Man, but when you allow talented people (not diversity hires) creative freedom and resources, there’s a greater chance of magic happening.
Either way, for the love of deities, keep boards, sponsors, lobbyists, activists, HR, lawyers and investors out of the creative process!
P.S. As a female viewer, I want good character dynamics. Romantic relationships are my copium, but it can be whatever well-developed relationship. Story is always second to character. As in, a bad plot can be saved by awesome characters, but not the other way around.
You’re absolutely right. Trouble is that they despise the nerds. Famously, they hate Henry Cavill, who reportedly got into numerous fights with Witcher writers because he knew and loved the source material.
I’m furious about the upcoming Wheel of Time. So furious, I’m going to watch it and hurt my own feelings, lol. That showrunner is exactly the kind of person you’re describing, wanting to do his own art house magnum opus.
I'm convinced that most people like labours of love and can sense when a project is the result of a creative vision rather than a corporate checklist. I can 'get into' something that I normally don't have an interest in if the creators made it with passion and dedication.
I find it amusing that Disney felt the need to go out of their way to court the male audience at all. They already had us. Every boy fell in love with a Disney princess at one point. It's like Sailor Moon, we all secretly watched and we all know Mercury is best girl.
True. I'm a guy who was born in 1981. My friends and I were exposed to the Disney princess movies because of our little sisters and we enjoyed them. They're just good films regardless of who is "supposed" to like them
True. I was a young adult during "The Disney Renaissance". I saw almost every one in theater with a group of co-ed friends. The men loved them, too.
Umm... No.
I never had a crush on a Disney princess, but they sure had me with the more guy movies like Lion King, Aladin, and Mulan. It's not like Disney had no make audience.
Wonder what would happen if Disney managed to get all the rights needed to adapt Dungeon Keeper Ami...
Meet or beat expectations, don’t subvert them. Tell good stories with likable characters. Don’t try to expand an audience, just focus on story.
"Subverting expectations" gets a bad rap- understandably, given how clumsily it has been done in many recent examples. It's okay to surprise your audience, if the element you're removing is replaced with something that's at least equally compelling, and that makes sense within the story. Subverting for subversion's sake, and leaving little or nothing where an element was expected, leaves the entertainment equivalent of a deflated souffle.
@sterling7 It's the old adage: "Bad writing is giving your audience what they don't want. Good writing is giving the audience what they want. Great writing is giving the audience what they didn't realize they wanted"
The problem is too many people are doing bad writing while attempting great writing. No one is trying for good writing.
A Rom-Com with Action.....Sooooooo, Mr and Mrs Smith?! Haha
I actually forgot about that one! If I recall, the actors themselves were the pinnacle of sexy at the time, I think that had something to do with it. Still a fun movie, though
@@gregowen2022 Yeah that movie was like a perfect storm.
I think if they continue doing Disney princess films then yeah, but they should keep things like marvel and star wars boy targeted, as they were intended to be that way when made
More princess films but from other cultures.
Disney wants more rep? Well try, let me check my list... JAPAN, RUSSIA, FINLAND, SWEDEN, OR AFRICA, the last one especially since it's not just one country but NUMEROUS tribes and nations with various folklore
Hell, they can just look back at Greece to see Atalanta hidden behind the IP power of Perseus, Theseus and Heracles. Atalanta was abandoned by her kingly father for being a girl, gets raised by bears then hunters, becomes a badass, has a male friend who respects her life choices and takes down a monstrous boar when among a large group of male hunters.
@@theanimeunderworld8338 agreed! They still need to make an English Disney princess, which I'm surprised they haven't since the English royal family used to be very popular. There is lots of room for material there, at least if they were going for a good story, not really rep. otherwise an Ejyption princess would be pretty cool. It would also be a chance for Disney to go as dark as dreamworks, since if they use Ejyption mythology as an inspiration, a lot of it has to do with the afterlife. Also, they would be able to add a lot of cat designs.
Agree with you both. This world has more stories than we could ever possibly get on screen, but they somehow think it’s clever to tell a previous story, but girl this time.
@@gregowen2022 they're trying to copy Fate badly
Same shit we're seeing in AAA game studios. They are chasing all the wrong things in all the wrong ways.
Instead of focusing on quality and a good product, they are trying to milk money/time out of people. Where if they just put out a quality product, the money would flow and people would put in the hours willingly.
As soon as it drops on PS5, I’m going to be waist deep in Baldur’s Gate, and I’ll be making some videos about what Hollywood could learn from that game. Sounds like it’s a love letter to the audience
@@gregowen2022 considering everything I've seen on it, it is. And it's a one time purchase. If my laptop could handle it I would pick it up in a heartbeat. Used to love D&D when I was younger.
The irony is they say if you don’t mindlessly consume it’s because you’re a bigot/racist/etc HOWEVER for decades you’ve had characters like black Panther, ms marvel, etc. and the comics sold no problem! But despite Disney claiming to be open minded it took 10 and 11 years to get a black superhero or a female superhero in their movies.
remember when DC came out with Wonder Woman while Marvel fans were begging for a Black Widow movie for years by that time? That's when Marvel decided to do "HERo" marketing and have a "girls get it done" scene in End Game. They waited until Black Widow was dead.
Indeed. They are so amazingly open-minded, yet can’t make original representation of any culture, just race swaps.
Read Hugo and Nebula award winning books from before around 1990. The female characters are more comfortable in their sexuality and interactions with society. More recent female characters are less fleshed-out, almost less human. I think that it's becoming progressively more taboo to explore honestly the societal consequences of a fundamental worldview of conflict between men and women instead of cooperation.
They say there is a male loneliness epidemic. Perhaps it’s due to a few decades of telling them they are part of an evil patriarchy that is literally killing women around the globe?
The Hugos and Nebulas got infected by woke, too... which is the reason you need to limit to earlier winners.
@@gregowen2022 Not to mention 50 years of being told that we're worthless... and treated like it, too, all too often.
IMO, hookup culture is a natural result of that.
What guy wants to be Homer Simpson?
@@Nyet-Zdyes All the drama surrounding the Sad Puppies thing is a great illustration of how mixed up the awards and wokeness, etc. had all become. [As an aside: the subtle and not-so-subtle bias of the wikipedia article about sad puppies is another example of it.]
@@613harbinger316 I somehow missed all the sad puppies stuff... until quite recently.
I had to look it up... someone had mentioned it... and that led me to the Wikipedia article.
Just the name "sad puppies" sounds derisive... like stereotypical man-shaming.
But, maybe I've seen so much of that crap in modern media that now I see it even when it wasn't intentional.
The simplest explanation is that they are taking the male audience for granted on Star Wars and Marvel. I participated in a pre-release screening of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie back in April 2014. When they were picking people for the focus group afterwards, they deliberately excluded me when I told them that I have been reading the comic books ever since Annihilation: Conquest. They did not care about my opinion of the movie because they knew that people like me would not only watch it day one, but we would also be the ones evangelizing it to all of our friends and family.
I am known as they guy who follows Star Wars and Marvel, so my friends ask me if all of the new stuff is worth watching. And lately I have been saying no. I have been telling everyone that Secret Invasion is the worst thing they have ever put out - worse than even She-Hulk.
The DnA cosmic stories were so good.
The audience that they HAVE... is NOT the audience that they WANT.
My husband and I used to go way out of our way to see the Phase 1&2 Marvel movies. We were actually in Australia when the 1st Thor movie came out, and we gave up sightseeing time to get to that theater. As soon as they started rolling out these toxic, manly, Mary Sue’s…we’ve legit lost ALL interest.
They’ve ruined all the male characters left or replaced them with women. I can’t even remember the last Marvel movie I had any hope for, let alone was excited was coming, because they’re all the same: women all powerful, can do NO wrong; men all stupid, can do NO right.
I vote we get Greg at every Q&A with a press pass and a microphone to shake things up.
I’ll need immunity for swearing, because there will be a lot
I'm here for two reasons. You tend to go deeper into your perspectives than most other content creators, and you seem genuinely appreciative of the audience you have and the audience you're building. I respect both of those things.
I genuinely do appreciate that.
That’s why I like YT so much. I don’t feel a good opinion can be expressed in 240 characters or whatever. Tonight I’m going to be running some ideas past everyone about how to do the community part better, I’m excited!
Female moviegoer here. I used to be a HUGE Marvel movie fan. I knew the Marvel movie schedule for the next two years and purchased my tickets a month in advance for every opening weekend. I bought every movie and watched and obsessed with my husband and son over every character detail. They began to lose me slightly with some of Phase 3, and I completely tuned out partway through Phase 4. They killed, destroyed, or made a joke of almost every character I loved (Capt. America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor, Loki, Nick Fury, Vision, Scarlet Witch) and became massively tiresome with their agenda pushing.
Modern movies have lost me on all fronts! I love traditional Disney Princess flicks, and I adore Jane Austin. I'm also a fan of great, geeky, action flicks and a huge fan of women kicking butt...Black Widow in Phase 1 and 2, the original Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, Zoe and River in Serenity, to name a few. But these characters were fantastic! The story, dialogue, and character development were all there, and they were partners with excellent male characters who could hold their own (Zoe and River without Mal and Jayne, no!)
The new female power characters with their pitiful male "leads" just don't cut it. Even Jane Austin is getting a woke-ified face lift. The last few years have left me with little to watch except old favorites.
Deconstructing someone to one characteristic, such as race, gender, orientation IS insulting; ppl R SO much more complex than that.
"Work w/ themes, rather than blunt messages." GOD YES!
Greg also hit on this aspect that is a HUGE Issue for me; which is the 'nerfing' & or 'dumbing down' of the male characters, seemingly only to make the female characters look SO much better.
You should not need to put someone down in order for you to stand tall and represent!
The funny thing is that it isn’t working in regards to making women look strong, and why would it? Do I look strong when I can do something better than a child? Women on screen look stronger when paired with strong men because the audience has perspective to see strengths of both. The pettiness of Hollywood wanting to belittle men is ironically undercutting the message they want to send.
Thanks 4 the response Greg; I feel so excited that the guy who MADE the video responded to me!! (I do not do much messaging on scoial media, etc., so its SUPER exciting to me!
LOVE your videos and ur personality as you make them ! Keep up the good work! PS I also really like ur huor and laugh out loud to many of ur 'jokes'. @@gregowen2022
I got to be honest, that period piece “Fast and Furious “ sounded interesting. I could see giving that a watch. Really all of those action romcom mashups…
Someone make that. Give Greg credit.
Hahaha, “Sprightly and Steaming: Mansfield Drift”
K-drama has been doing this with amazing success for decades.
I myself just recently began watching “Behind Your Touch” on Netflix. The story is about a veterinarian with psychic powers and how she teams up with a demoted cop in chase of a serial killer in a smallish rural town.
It’s a happy blend of sci-fi, action, thriller, romance and comedy. And heck, it works really well.
Even my romance-hating kid is completely hooked.
Excellent! You keep churning out great videos; I'm both envious and inspired!
I'd add two (possible) corollaries to what you shared for attracting female audiences, and that's: 1) Have female leads or co-leads who are simply *well-written*, and (more importantly) 2) Adding a stronger character-driven elements to existing tropes. "No Country for Old Men" or "American Beauty" are examples of incredible character-driven stories within predominantly masculine plots. Neither of these are "pandering," and both have the benefit of also elevating the quality for their core audiences.
I completely agree. I think something they are missing is having strong women AND strong men. By beating the men down, the women don’t look strong in comparison just like I don’t look fast when I beat a toddler in a foot race. When strong women and men are put next to each other, it gives perspective that makes both look strong
Be honest. What you described is a lot of hard work and I think that’s the point. You have writers, directors & showrunners treating projects & IPs as opportunities for fan fiction.
So what they care about or passionate about is what gets emphasis most often at the expense of storytelling, character development or world building. I think some creators (not all) don’t have the capability of doing the kind of work you’re talking about or more importantly lack the desire to better their writing.
You’ve heard show runners from projects like the Witcher, Rings of Power, Marvel on Disney plus, etc. and directors & cast talk about their projects so let’s be honest.
Too many have devoted themselves wholeheartedly and I mean devoted (as in they can’t help themselves) to virtue signaling, self inserts & heavy handed messaging to ever get better at their craft. They are telling the exact stories they want to tell.
Hard truth is studios must hire better. Only way Hollywood redeems itself is to become a meritocracy again & hire people capable & committed to attracting consumers.
Sorry for that rant has been in my head you unfortunately unlocked it lol.
I’m here for that rant. The upcoming Wheel of Time season 2 is going to send me into a fury. That show is pure fan fiction, relying completely on name recognition, and it makes me sick. They want the views, but they simultaneously hate the audience that made those properties great so they sneer in tweets while proclaiming who is going to be gay suddenly or act in a way that is completely anathema to the character.
I worked as a data analyst for a company whose influence can be seen on everything from RUclips to Amazon today. Anyway, the philosophy was explicitly anti-demographics. We didn't care what was between your legs or the amount of melanin in your skin. We focused on your behavior. What ads resonate with you, what did you purchase, what encourages you to spend more? The only time we broke things out by demographics was to keep the attention of the marketing team of our clients, we used nice bright colors and pretty pie charts. Everything else was about the data that actually contributed to the goal.
so basically the joke that marketing teams ruin companies from dilbert is true
I think Disney are well aware of what girls and boys like. Hence the decision to purchase Marvel Studios and Lucas Film. However, what they are worried about is inclusion. Marvel is very popular and right now the danger to what is popular is cancel culture. They want to make sure that everyone is included in the popular Marvel conversation and when things are remade to re-energise a franchise and Disneys bank account they need to make sure they are including everyone from different genders and race. They are severely overthinking it and failing.
You can and should totally focus on a gender for your audience because men and women likes different things in aggregate. The problem comes when you tries to compromise and make the content "for everyone". Doing that will make sure that its bland for every demographic. Thats not to say that there are not movies that are good enough that they appeal to everyone. But that's usually just a result of it being extremely well made, not that it aimed to please everyone.
Star Wars for example, is something that has almost universal appeal. But thats not how it was made. George Lucas aimed for the 12 year old boy demographic and got the rest of the people for free.
You are correct. The big question is: why hasn't Disney come to the same conclusion? They have billions, multiple studies, etc but they can't get the information that a simple RUclipsr can? I think they know this information but choose, for whatever reason, not to act upon it. So the big question would be, why don't they?
That is simple, because they are all about politics. There is no other explanation. They are trying to change people, not give them what they want.
Part of the problem is money.
Movies and shows have gotten EXPENSIVE.
That means getting the largest possible audience in EVERY movie... which is NOT the same thing as making different movies for different audiences.
It's not even greed, not necessarily, although I'm not saying greed isn't a part of it, either.
Part of it is the modern narrative, that men and women are the same.
We are not... but they don't want to admit that.
The reality is they're never gonna convert generic women to marvel or star wars fans, because no matter how much "girl stuff" they try to put in, those women still won't be fans of the genres. Like you said, the women who do see these films were probably already fans of the genres to begin with, so it's better to focus on quality. "You catch more flies with honey," as they say.
There were women who already enjoyed Star Wars, Marvel, Star Trek etc...as THEY WERE. You canNOT metamorphise franchises, some of which are over 50 YEARS OLD, to become something they are NOT within the span of 10 years....🤦♂️
What Disney NEEDED to do...was make NEW CONTENT. But that's TOO HARD for these incompetent people. This is also a problem affecting the rest of hollywood which is why it lost 1.5 BILLION across two months💀. Nothing is wrong with diversity...once you MAKE SOMETHING NEW and dont BASTARDIZE iconic pieces of media to give people SCRAPS.
You know like the 2000s and late 90s did where it had a bunch of diversity but the characters just felt like PEOPLE because they were MADE for those respective worlds and weren't HAMFISTED into pre established franchises. Crazy part is I didn't realise exactly how much diversity there was in the 2000s until recently cause that was NOT the point. The point was just making ENTERTAINING media. Man I miss the 2000s😭🤦♂️
That’s a solid point. We had some diversity, perhaps it could have been improved, but when that goal became the number one priority, everything else suffered.
Alex Kurtzman and his pals massacred Star Trek. In the past the crews would solve problems with intelligence and teamwork. Now Michael Burnham can solve everything by crying and whispering all her dialogue.
@@gregowen2022 Exactly. Diversity was steadily coming in and some REALLY good diversity too. And no one was accused of isms when they didnt enjoy a show...especially since MOST shows back then were enjoyable💀
Twilight was super popular. Just add romance
5:05 Disney: We need more men to watch us.
Us: Make a John Carter movie.
Disney: Uhhh, I'll think about it...
MARVEL IS UP FOR SALE.
Iger: Marvel is up for sale, eh? We'll just buy them and bring the boys over that way.
Us: But John Carter...
Disney: SHUT UP! You'll watch Marvel anyway. FuckJohn Carter!
Us: 😢
People have been saying what you said for a long time now and, so far, Disney hasn't listened. It's still all about (say this in a loud, ominous, reverberated tone) "THE MESSAGE".
BELIEVE THAT!
I am a woman... I am a fan of the classic Star Wars. You know why? Because the characters were believable - they were human (well... displayed very human characteristics, even if they were droids, Wookiees, Mon Calamari or something else entirely). They tried, failed, learned and grew... they were aspirational.
The EU introduced more characters and more places... The characters all had believable goals and arcs and stories. They didn't always succeed first time, or even second time. They had depressive moments, moments of pure fear or anger or exhilaration.
Then came The Force Awakens. Great - a new Star Wars film. They introduced Rey, Finn and Poe. Rey took on a bad guy at his own game, that he's been practising for years and years, while she's just barely learned the rules. And she wins, no effort. Poe, an X-wing pilot, gets belittled and talked down to by the worst excuse foy a military officer in this galaxy or the GFFA, who can't hold a simple briefing (something shown in every single one of the original trilogy, BTW). Finn, a black stormtrooper who switches sides, is basically only there for the posters and is completely sidelined.
And Disney never put the original gang back together onscreen - and now nobody can unless they employ AI or something, which would be an absolute mockery.
I walked out of the cinema and I will never pay another penny to Disney for any of their Star Wars stuff because it sucks. There's no heart to it, no emotion. Women have to put men down just to be able to climb over their prostrate bodies to be as good as them - something Leia Organa never needed to do, not once.
I wanted to be Leia, or at least, to emulate her courage, her tenacity, her sheer grit and determination. I don't want to be Rey, I don't want my niece to grow up thinking Rey or Admiral Holdo or anyone else, is worth emulating, in any way shape or fashion.
PS. Women don't have magical powers just because they have boobs.
When it comes to superhero related movies, some of the source material has female characters. They're like the female counterpart of the male characters. For instance, there's Thor and The Mighty Thor; Spider-Man and Spider-Woman; Superman and Supergirl; Batman and Batwoman; etc. Marvel gets accused of gender-swapping, yet some people don't bat an eye with DC. Coming from a lore standing, isn't it expanding upon the written lore than gender-swapping? Like, we've seen so many Batman movies. Why can't we have a Batwoman movie? Oh wait. There was a TV series of her and it was horrible. It was too political and wasn't fun. What about Supergirl? There was an old movie. It wasn't received well but I enjoyed it because she's my favorite Kryptonian. So, in conclusion agreeing with one good notable point: don't look at your audience gendered and make fun stuff worth watching. But on a business aspect, some things do have a target demographic. Why can't we have the same model with movies? For example, the Barbie movie was meant for a female audience and somehow did good. Yet some guys also watched that film. Am I missing something or am I dumb? lol
I disagree, I'd love to see more genres mixed into romcoms, specifically Hallmark movies. Here's my modest proposal:
A successful, career-driven reporter leaves her high powered CEO boyfriend back in the big city, coming to a small town in Kansas for a quaint, quiet Christmas. She ends up falling for a small town farmboy local, who teaches her the virtues of truth, justice, and the American Way. Her boyfriend, overly controlling, decides to come through said town with an army of robots, so it's up to the local guy to change into his blue tights and save Smallville from LexCorp's evil robots.
Xexe, M-She-U has really caught up as a phrase. Nerdrotic should be proud of that lol. Anyway, they are trying to replace the audience. Which in a core isnt so bad(in a sense that they want other demographic as well) but it just doesnt work. They builded success on male audience. Replacing them, esspecially by pooping on them, will only chase your existing audience. And your new audience may never even be there. Because your product doesnt appeal to them. No matter how much people are trying to erase the gender differences, they are still there. I wont have too much luck by trying to make women to watch a Schwarzenegger movie from 90s. Even if we replace him for, lets say Ronda Rousey. That movie audience would still be dominantly male. Do you know why? Because it appeals to males by default. So appealing to almost non-existing fanbase, would be a disaster because they wont watch. And you would alienate your existing one. For example, video games are trying for years to get that big female audience. And while some research says how women are even in majority of video games audience, they are non-existing in any bigger AAA video game. Because they mostly play mobile games and stuff like Animal Kingdom. Even Brie Larson plays that one. Every major game doesnt have a women players at all and they are a very small part of gamers. Competative scene is dominantly male. Because stuff like shooters, even stuff like MOBA isnt attractive to them no matter how much devs are trying to make it so. They are less competative and not interested in baseless action. Its just not the target demographic for the product. But for example stuff like "Barbie" is. Its a female-centric property that everyone knows. So ofcourse it does good with women.
As my partner said it once: "We all like to watch superhero hunks because men want to be them and women want to be with them".
BTW, the carriage drag racing romance storyline exists. It's a historical novel called Regency Buck, by Georgette Heyer.
11:52 There is a reason why timeless stories are timeless - they fill a hole and provide satisfaction. Lucas learned this when he read Campbell's writings about "The Hero's Journey." Both men and women resonate with such concepts psychologically. As a Christ-follower, I believe this speaks to a "God-shaped hole," and successful stories address this deep need. When we deviate from these truths, we end up with a very unsatisfying story that leaves the entire audience confused, dissatisfied, and unfulfilled. A good story doesn't need to be "Biblical" but it does need to follow precepts of how we are made. Otherwise we end up with junk!
"It was the most pandering attempt to get women into the theatres since Magic Mike". Here's the problem. Magic Mike worked, Rey Palpatine didn't. Women do not want to bang a female power fantasy. Can't say I blame them...
I've seen 6 of the last 10 Marvel movies, and sadly, I could sleep through the others and still know how they ended. Besides that, I only watched the first 3 shows because the rest were basically saying I'm the villain and a bad person, but the people doing bad things are just "misunderstood."
I watch you because you're smart, funny, and articulate. I hate box ticking, pandering, and virtue signalling. I'm old enough to remember real art, and I almost despair for what tries to pass for entertainment these days.
heck, an example Toei kept the formula of the Kamen Rider franchise, which is boy centric, and it somehow gained a huge female fanbase, particularly from moms
Well comics have largely appealed to boys and men, except for Archie comics.
The major issue with all these superhero films is about how much do we want our lavish fantasies grounded in reality?
I fucking loved Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter man it was awesome .
Woman here. Most of the channels I watch have most male audiences. If those channels suddenly decide to pivot to women, chances are they would no longer appeal to me, and I would stop watching.
Cater to the audience that enjoys the genre. No one is out there pushing to make Hallmark movies more male friendly.
These studios also don't seem to know what women like. Chicks generally enjoy hot guys on screen and a love story. But they make these female-targeted movies loveless.
Expanding the franchise makes sense; however, it seems like they’re doing it at the expense of the male audience. It’s like taking something from someone just to give it to someone else…who doesn’t really want it as much as the person that you took it from in the first place.
Targeting women isn't the problem. Princess stories target women and action movies often target men. The issue is when you decide that you are what the audience is waiting for, not the story. As a freelancer and ghostwriter, I can't tell you how many times I've had to fight writers and clients about what needs to stay in for story versus ego. Disney's problem is ego and bad writing.
It's gonna be hard to up the quality of your work, it's practically perfect.
They were setting box office records every time a movie came out. Why would they need to expand their audience?
Woman here...no they are just ticking us off with the fake overpower characters that are mean and not relatable
Disney chasing women is a horrible idea because most fans are men since women are not usually drawn to this stuff.
The point you made about them not buying a studio that already had a majority female audience like that makes sense to me I don't know why they didn't just try that first before doing what they're doing now to me that would make more sense to do that
9:26 It's 10% not 30% of women that voted for "more leading ladies, but not Mary Sues".
no
"How can they expand their audience?"
Well ... first off they'd have to work on getting their previous audiences back. _Then_ they can maybe look at "growth" lmao 😅
Really, you really believe that
The damage has been done n it's deep
It'd take a bit of humility for Disney to course correct n evidence of this will take at least 6/7 years to manifest
But they do not write more women. They just write male roles and hire women to play them.
Part of what he is saying is true, but the elephant in the room is that A) throwing a chick into an Alpha Male's role always fails. On the other hand, Greg is correct to say that for women it is about the characters. I know this because when I started my writing career I ventured into the Harlequin Romance novel field. I did this because on TV all the news magazine shows were trumpeting the LARGE shortage of novels to satisfy the fanbase of those books. I read 4 novels back to back and realized there was a pattern, and it was all concerned with character 'feelings'--for example, before the first kiss you have to have no less than 5 pages of the woman thinking to herself how WONDERFUL this kiss will be. How it will lead to so much happiness. Then 3 pages of the man thinking how he is about to rock this woman's world with just a kiss. THEN you have to have a -page and a half of her pushing him away before the kiss. She has to think of all the regrets she will have if she gives up whatever mission she was on at the time. So, yeah, women like characters, BUT unlike what Greg said they DO want to see White Alpha Males being MEN--we see this in the success of films such as Top Gun Maverick, Future War, Extraction1 & 2, and so many others. These scripts are well done so that they hark back to TRADITION and do not make the leading Male subservient to women.
I’ve read some Laverle Spencer and it follows that pattern to a T, lol. And you’re right, let’s not act like it was an accident that Fabio was on every romance novel cover for a decade. Men might be more visual, but women aren’t blind either.
In my opinion the Marvel and Star Wars franchises can rebound if they go back to and stay with the source material of which there is a ton of. It makes no sense to not use it and attempt to remake the wheel.
Agreed. Quit with the Skywalkers. There is an ENTIRE expanded universe
I cannot believe the MCU has pretty much stopped adapting stories from the comics. And on top of that they're pushing characters that have never been popular in the first place.
Although I actually think it would kind of funny if they made a movie based on America Chavez's *atrocious* first solo series. It would be like an MCU version of _The Room_
You bringing up mashing genres together made me think of "Mr & Mrs Smith" - which I think was intended to try and be a 50/50 guy/girl flick.
Discuss.
That was a solid movie and I think actually worked! Looks like it made a bunch. However, I have to chalk some of that up to casting. That was back when they made movies with the best looking people they could find and, shockingly, people tend to like that. Also, freaking Vince Vaughn, an absolute gem
What makes me want to watch movies or TV shows is the characters. I love seeing romances blossom on screen and well written characters work on their flaws. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the classic CGI Barbie movies are some of my favorite stories because they have a variety of likeable and interesting characters.
Mariposa, Princess Annalise, and Twilight Sparkle were some of my favorites because they reflected my interests and flaws. Seeing them improve over time made them more real to me. Another character I related to a lot was Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) He was the oldest, a leader, someone who made mistakes and learned from them.
This is what draws me into shows. The most recent movies I liked were ATSV, The Bad Guys, and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish because they were character driven.
You don’t court demos because you’re in the building/survival phase. Once you’ve got executives who’ve never had to create like their life depends on it, working at an established multibillion dollar studio, they can try all sorts of stupid things that they will never be completely on the hook for if fails and everything is so cushioned they’ll often never KNOW when it fails. And if for some crazy reason the studio goes under, they’ll be working at another studio the next year.
Competition baby, film/tv industry needs way more of it.
as a woman, I would unsubscribe if you started doing makeup tutorials
It would be hilariously bad and would probably give everyone watching secondhand embarrassment
They are targeting ESG. That will get them money. The claim they are targeting women but they are not. Do we have a name now? Gregulars?
Yes! Gregulars, and I love it.
Something that gives me great hope is that the audience still has power. They are chasing the ESG score because it gets them investment dollars, and yet it's not working. People are fleeing Disney stock, it's losing billions in valuation.
Hi XD Woman here who both likes your videos and likes the MCU. Putting a woman as the lead did not make me like the movies more. I liked Captain America, Spider Man and Iron Man well enough already ^-^
But would Greg get more female viewership if he did a video shirtless? 🤔
Absolutely not. Unless they like dadbods
Wait I’m upset about the fact that the 2000s was 20 years ago 😭
Me too. I hurt my own feelings with that one
Two decades ago Disney thought their MALE viewership was unacceptable.
Why we got Hercules and Tarzan.
And, also why Disney bought Star Wars and Marvel...so they had "boy" IPs, to go with the Disney "girl" IP.
So, it is just so weird that they are choosing to feminize their "boy" brands, without adding any male energy to their "girl" brand.
Marvel 2023 is the same Ultra Competent Quasie-Lesbians escorting an idiot man-child across Space, Time & Interdimentional reality.
They've turned Marvel movies into 2hr episodes of *_Everybody Loves Raymond_*
Greg, you are the best at intelligently breaking down problems and finding solutions! Disney should hire you.
Actually, Rey Palpatine was all Kathleen Kennedy's idea, not because she was trying to target the female audience, but because she wanted to insert herself into the franchise, same with Helena in Indiana Jones
The narcissism, and it's appendage agenda, has become the standard operating procedure in the industry. Annoying self-insert characters. Taking others stories they don't like, but with a pre-built fanbase, and bastardizing them with their own terrible self-inserted stories. Pomposity was let off the leash.
@NefariousKoel Rey was such a self insert that she didn't even have a name until the very last minute, the script literally referred to her as "Female Protagonist" lol
Well, get a crew of passionate & talented people who cares deeply about what they produced. Tell story instead of stitching tick boxes. They seem complacent at the moment because of previously success. The Disney branch is still strong evidently shown in box office take. Unless they don’t really care about box office and use movies and a stepping stone to sell merchandise like TMNT and Transformers. It is so weird to buy Lucas but don’t focus on the legacy world . Why buy Marvels and kill of most of the crowd favourites. I recall after endgames I thought gosh they really destroy the avengers. Kill off all the good characters. They have nothing left. Now with Snow White, they attempt to destroy their own foundation. Snow White is a timeless story that I love. I am horrifying when Rachel said oh Snow White is a cooperate woman who wants to be a leader with no pursuing of true love ???? 😂😂😂😂
They can expand the audience by not destroying old stories (I mean shit, they destroyed Roadie Rodes in Ironman going back *TEN YEARS* for no reason) and by making their new stories about the characters and motivations of those characters, instead of superficial bullshit and flashy CGI blurr-battles.
I am a man. I enjoy visuals, but on that score Disney and all live-action stuff in the last few years have failed miserably in any case. They don't do world-building concept art at all. They give a CGI team about 1 week to do 8 weeks worth of work, underpay them, and then brow-beat them when it isn't good enough. As a result, they hire people who are desperate for work and treat them like short-order cooks when they should be hiring chefs and paying them well and giving them the resources and time they need to do a good job.
Of course they do, It's a great way to get cardio.
We're talking about chasing women at night, right?
I mean... I know it was a joke, but those "male-centric rom-coms" you proposed sounded pretty great. I'm not generally a fan of rom-coms, but I'd definitely watch any of those.
It will never not be ironic that Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm to appeal to boys who don't like princess musicals... and then immediately began killing both properties by trying to make the princess musical demo the audience for Star Wars and Marvel.
Ask yourself, do they try to get men to watch Real Housewives? NO, because men don't like that content just like most women DON'T READ COMICS!!!
Maybe Disney could learn from RUclipsrs.
Edit: I liked Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter because the premise was silly and also interesting, and the movie was entertaining to me. Plus, tall, stoic "Honest Abe" dishing out the pain to some bloodsuckers was stupid and funny as hell at the same time. (I haven't seen P&P&Z yet.)
I was trying to picture Daniel Day-Lewis in the role, and that made it even more hilariously ridiculous.
Okay, if you want to handle 'mantles/legacy characters' well, Kamen Rider Hibiki handled it well with Kamen Rider Todoroki and Zanki. Basically, Todoroki was meant to take on Zanki's mantle but in the end, decides to be his own man.
Unironically, I think the reason we have an MCU was because Iron Man was a well-written and deep character that was also approachable in terms of plot.
It's easy to forget there was a bland Hulk movie in the early days that is basically ejected from the MCU for it's blandishness.
If they didn't focus on making interesting, sympathetic characters with strong and clear plots in the early days, the MCU would have died off quickly, I think.
Now, we get lectures, quips, and homework to follow convoluted plots and absolutely no character depth.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (one of my favorite movies) was a good balance of romcom/action
Stop replacing and race-swapping redheads. I dont know why Hollywood likes to do this, but just stop it. One day I would love to see a Luke Skywalker meet his hot redhead wife, Mara Jade. (and it's OK to just re-cast Luke. Sebastian Stan is a good pick, stop with the CGI crap already) Get back to good stories everyone wants to watch and stop shoving "the message" down everyone's throats. It's not hard. There is a reason EVERYBODY went to watch Star Wars. It was fun, with interesting, unique characters, good dialogue, world building and story, and appealed to everyone! You want profitable, this will do it!
Very simple just write good sh*t. Underworld 1 and 2 female pretty entertaining. The strong woman archetype has been around for decades but done better in the 80s and 90s. Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese anyone just go back to the future
Any scheme involving MONEY can only succeed in schemes involving MONEY---it doesn't work in every field, something these hacks will never understand.