Did the "boyification" of the Rapunzel movie make any difference?

[Seabean]

It's been about 6 weeks since Tangled came out, so I thought enough time has passed to ask...
(and pardon me if someone already had a thread on this, I couldn't find one)

As we all know, the Rapunzel movie was in production for quite a few years, and was intended to be a regular girl-centric Disney princess movie. In the last year or so, they decided (for box office rea$on$) that they didn't want the movie to be so skewed towards a girl audience and get a little more of the "boy demographic". So they increased the emphasis on the Flynn character and made the overall feel of the movie more "Shrek-like".

So did it work? Did any appreciably higher percentage of boys show up to see this movie?

IMHO, no. My own DD's went to see the movie with their friends (with their mom as chaperone) and according to them the theater was "all girls". I can see the posts in the other "Tangled" threads here that everyone was mainly taking their DD's.

Anyone else have any observations/opinions on this? Would it have made no difference in box-office receipt$ if the movie had been just as female-centric as it probably was originally intended? Did the attempt to reach out to boys for this movie not work?

 

[Hermacdady]

We took our daughter (3) to see it and took our son (6) along who wanted to see it but used his sister as an excuse. You could tell in his wording that he still preceived it as a "girls" movie. After words though he said he really enjoyed it. I just asked him if he thought it is a boys movie or a girls and he said both. So I guess the hard part is getting them into the theater, and with movies like Tron and Naria out now, I'm guessing it will stay more of a girls movie.

 

[karly05]

Apparently, Tangled has done better than Princess & the Frog, but still well below $200 million ($167 million through Jan 2 according to Entertainment Weekly).

I think the box office difference between Tangled & PatF has less to do with "boyification" than with the difference between CGI and 2-D animation. (Honestly, I think it's hard to sell old-fashioned 2-D animation to a general audience anymore, no matter how much animation buffs and Classic Disney fans still love it.) And anyone who waited to read reviews or hear word of mouth on Tangled would know it's still at heart a Disney fairy tale musical romance, and nowhere near as "Shreky" as the ads wanted to suggest.

Even with the "boyification" and title change, I'd guess the average boy is still going to be more interested in something like "Tron."

 

[j&j620]

I teach kindergarten and one of my female students decided she wanted to see Tangled instead of having a traditional birthday party. Her parents invited all of the children in my class and some from another class AND purchased enough tickets for each child who came to bring a parent. The Monday following the "party" my male students could not stop talking about how cool the movie was. Honestly, they talked about it more than the girls. Would they have gone to see it if they hadn't been invited to the party? The ones with sisters, probably. The others, probably not. But I do think Disney was successful in making a film that appeals to both sexes. Like Hermacdady said, I guess the hard part is getting both to the theater.

 

[Mickeysgirl34]

I went to see Tangled for the 3rd time w/ Brooke and Todd. There were TONS of boys in the theater. They enjoyed it a lot

I've also heard on Youtube that many boys enjoy Tangled as much as P&TF.

Even in school,boys ask me if I saw Tangled cause they either went or got dragged by their younger siblings and loved it

 

[avgeek81]

My friend's son who is turning 4 next week really wants to see it. They are having his party at the theater so the kids can see it.

 

[bella77]

My three year old nephew loved it. Since we saw it right after Thanksgiving, he has been saying he wants to see it again at the theater.

 

[Experiment_626]

they increased the emphasis on the Flynn character and made the overall feel of the movie more "Shrek-like".

They increased the emphasis on Flynn Rider in the marketing, but not in the film itself. And I think, again, that the marketing made it look a bit like Shrek, but in the movie itself, that just isn't really there. It isn't a smug self-parody with constant cynical winks at the audience, taking cheap shots at cultural icons in order to mask an inferiority complex (which is largely how I see Shrek).

Did the attempt to reach out to boys for this movie not work?

Well, there's no way to prove this one way or the other. It has currently pulled in $167 million at the box office to date, versus $104 million or so for The Princess and the Frog, so there's that. I bet Disney probably feels it was at least somewhat successful.

It is also hard to talk about this movie in terms of how it was "originally intended" to be made. It has gone through numerous stops and starts, with a lot of material scrapped along the way -- including one pretty much complete reboot. It wasn't a movie meant to be one thing which became another -- it was one thing which became another, then another, then something else entirely, then something else again, then another thing, and finally what we have today -- more or less.

Scott

 

[Suz725]

I just took my 3 year old DD to see it for the second time and there were more boys than girls in the theatre

 

[Juliegirl1]

My ten year old boy saw it twice and loved it. We never saw The Princess and the Frog. Funny enough I had to drag him to see Toy Story 3 but he requested to go see Tangled.

 

[disneygirl1212]

I had been following information about this movie since I heard it was going to be created. At one point in time, I read somewhere that they were going to make it a modern day story with a twist. And then at another point I read somewhere that it was loosely going to follow the Rapunzel fairy tale.

Now that being said, when I watched the movie, I felt like there was more emphasis on the character of Flynn Rider. I felt like the movie was trying to appease both male and females but ultimately, while I did enjoy it, I felt like the movie was trying more to reach out to the male audience.

Disney is meant for everyone to enjoy just not girls. So what if Tangled was geared more towards boys. I still loved it.