disney trying to get back the genZ boys

[HokieRaven5]

There's a reason why Kpop Demon Hunters blew up the way that it did, especially on Spotify.

Netflix is very happy Sony sold the rights to a $100M film to them for $20M, and also content to not share any actual financial data from the weekend Sing-a-long release

 

[Philsfan77]

It’s gonna take them more than Kick Buttowski or Darth Vader to get a lot of casual males to Disney…

Exactly...once they get out of their parents basements and off their games and get married, their wives will make them go!

 

[Smugpugmug]

Netflix is very happy Sony sold the rights to a $100M film to them for $20M

Netflix is also probably kicking themselves for forcing the team to cut the film to be shorter (as confirmed by the director on her Twitter account). If the movie had like 20 more minutes to breathe, it would've been perfect for me.

 

[HokieRaven5]

Netflix is also probably kicking themselves for forcing the team to cut the film to be shorter (as confirmed by the director on her Twitter account). If the movie had like 20 more minutes to breathe, it would've been perfect for me.

I don’t think they’re that bothered since it’s their most watched movie without the added 20 minutes.

They know it can drive subs by being the hot thing and expand/maintain their now reached 30% profit margins

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

lost the gen z's to Anime

They never sacrifice the male protagonist to make the female protagonist stronger.

For these two above statements I think we would be remiss in not mentioning the pitfalls of anime (and manga) which can still sexualize the heck out of women. The treatment women (in real life) get is often objectified by men. They also do have a lot of violence.

One more thing anime does right - it poses philosophical questions that younger kids might not understand but older ones will.

Well so does other movies but it comes from a different way. Random example personally while I thought Belle could be seen as a damsel needing some rescue she also had backbone, didn't see Beast as someone to ostracize because of his looks and it also put forth very prominently that Belle was an intellectual who loved reading and that reading was perfectly acceptable for women (openly showing Gaston and the village folk as behind the times there).

Toy Story, while I understand your critiques of the later movies, would at least say they grappled with coming of age themes something Pixar has maintained over the years as being the Studio that does that, something that younger audiences aren't necessarily the target audience despite the animation used.

But anime is steeped in a different culture one of which it is more normal to bring forth certain philosophical themes. It doesn't mean that no one else does this, it can just mean they tackle things as they relate to the culture they are targeting.

I think for the same reason you did not have your girls watch the classic movies, if my kids were small now there would be no way i would have them watch the current ones.

IMO this isn't the flex that you think it is. Because in your comments you come across more that you feel annoyed that you perceive the male characters to be portrayed lesser than the women characters such as this below comment of yours is saying

Dinsey of new - has changed this and now the male character cant survive without the female.

But you readily admit you loved the "classics". Loving the classics at the same time as saying you don't like the new ones when the issue is still the same (to you that is where one gender is seen as needing help over the other and that's the plot point).

It comes across more like you're just more annoyed that you feel males are getting the short end of the stick rather than utilizing the thought that you wished Disney had started from the beginning with more equal viewpoints rather than a genderized version, like you feel the pendulum swung the other way and you don't like it.

Like if you instead of saying you didn't like how Kristoff sings that he can't live without Anna and instead framed it as you don't feel like anyone should be singing about not being able to live without anyone (and gender wasn't even part of it). I mean I get it you say they need to go back to the middle but it's still in the lens of gender being at the forefront which just comes across to me like you don't want the men (in your opinion) to be portrayed as hmm more stereotyped female of that past. I think that's where you're losing people.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Netflix is also probably kicking themselves for forcing the team to cut the film to be shorter (as confirmed by the director on her Twitter account). If the movie had like 20 more minutes to breathe, it would've been perfect for me.

I'm thinking Sony felt like they would keep it open for a sequel if it got enough attention and they wanted to keep it more short like older animation films were. There's actually a decent amount of the end run time just dedicated to credits (that actual movie is like 85-87mins long). Sony's Into the Spiderverse pushes the 2 hour mark and that one seems like it was with theaters in mind. It, to me at least, seems like when they moved KPop Demon Hunters to streaming they made a more conservative approach to runtime for an animated film.

I did see some criticism that while they seemed to really take to heart the Korean culture some things were left out that you would have seen in a film or tv show meant for Korean audiences to keep is more audience friendly.

I felt the same way you did that there was just a bit of stuff missing that could have been flushed out most especially to me that they introduced the past girl groups but then didn't really let me get invested in her mom's friend who took over raising her. I was like I know she's important but why (and of course her parentage is a big question mark but still).

Now that they are talking about sequels I'm wondering if they will keep the runtime (especially with the longer credits) lower or if they will allow more added content. When I first watched the movie I got the feeling they didn't think it would be anywhere near as successful as it wound up being and so editing choices might have been done with that in mind.

 

[Madteaparty001]

Just going to drop this interesting analysis about Last of Us here: Women and the Men Who Write Them

 

[asgur5]

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/disney-marvel-lucasfilm-gen-z-1236494681/#
Sorry if i did the link wrong. But as a mother of two young men, I could have told disney they did it all wrong and lost the gen z's to Anime. Here is where disney went wrong and i hope someone from disney reads this and really thinks about it.


Lets start where disney went wrong explained in the first two paragraphs

Disney of old - classic movies that I still love (Cinderella, SnowWhite, even sadly the Little Mermaid, and Aladdin) but sadly they had it wrong because the female was the victim who needed her male "prince" to rescue her (mind you the prince she met one hour before or day before) -which enchanted and frozen 1 so poignantly pointed out.

Dinsey of new - has changed this and now the male character cant survive without the female. Disney killed Toy story in Toy story 4 Where Woody left with Bo?? My kids grew up with toy story - I had put all their toy story stuff away for grand children thinking that would be something cherished forever. Nope - that one movie had my kids telling me to throw everything out. Who writes this stuff??? This is a story about friendship Woody and Buzz best friends forever. And disney wants to know where they went wrong????

Disney in the middle years- They got it right! Princess and frog, tangled, Beauty and the beast, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch (animated) ect - had it right. Both the female and male characters had flaws and needed each other to rescue each other. Princess and Frog - Tiana was an overachiever who sacrificed any fun for work - to an extreme. The prince on the other hand was lazy and total opposite - was all about fun and zero work ethic. They rescued each other.
Tangled - They brought out the best in each other and helped each other. She has her own goals and internal motivation, while Flynn it is reforming himself and finding that there is more to life than being a thief (on an island that i own tan and rested all alone) he has growth beyond being a selfish person and she helps him to realize this. Beauty and the beast - I don't think it needs an explanation.

Why anime is killing it with Gen Z males - They never sacrifice the male protagonist to make the female protagonist stronger. There are really strong female protagonists (Demon slayer - many strong female characters in the Hashira who fight and die in the infinity castle arc; AoT - Mikassa, but her strength does not diminish any of the male characters; onepiece the entire crew support and grow from each other -Nami is the smart navigator - luffy never questions her skills and vice-versa). Alchemist brotherhood - Winn (female) is Ed's prosthetist. She's brilliant and tells him or his brother off when they are wrong. So where did disney go wrong? I said it above they have in essence turned their male characters into the female characters of old. they need to go back to the middle, where the characters support each other and not make one gender strong at the expense of the other. I feel i have a decent understanding of this since we have had some pretty lengthy discussions on this. Disney has lost my two in terms of movie watching and tv to Anime - along with all their friends for the reasons i listed above. One more thing anime does right - it poses philosophical questions that younger kids might not understand but older ones will. lets start with naruto - the Pain arc - where the cycle of hatred is explained in terms of hate begets more hate and killing begets more killing. The importance of one willing to break the cycle and make changes. alchemist has the philosophy of equivalent exchange echos Kants categorical imperative. Attach on Titan = is the endless cycle of oppression and revenge. There is many more. OnePiece tackles racism, oppression, human trafficking among others. Legends of galactic hero is a mix of plato Hobbes and Machiavelli in space.

Sorry so long but I really hope disney is able to grasp where they went wrong and why they lost their male base to anime.

Did they ever have any male generation?

Gen x was into he-man, voltran, city of gold, astro boy and star wars. Never disney.
Millenials were into teenage mutant ninja turtles, anime like evangelion, cowboy bepop and death note and batman. Disney has never had males beyond the age of about 7

 

[BrianL]

Did they ever have any male generation?

Gen x was into he-man, voltran, city of gold, astro boy and star wars. Never disney.
Millenials were into teenage mutant ninja turtles, anime like evangelion, cowboy bepop and death note and batman. Disney has never had males beyond the age of about 7

I mean, that's kind of true, but also not entirely. I was a GenX kid and I did like Disney a lot. I watched all the classics, and generally was pretty engaged. I will say that I liked Star Wars more, and He-Man.Voltron/Transformers/Thundercats - that stuff was my bread and butter. Then again, DuckTales came along when I was a kid too, and it was very, very well-received by this GenX male. So Disney was very well-liked, but it maybe wasn't the primary pop-culture force in my life.