Why Can’t Disney Make Boys’ Movies?

TRON: LEGACY made over $400 million worldwide in box office, before home video sales.  Disney should have more “flops” like that.

Not really already 71 million over seas   this movie is doing amazing in places  where they  weren’t tainted by  internets comments and bad pre press…  the advance buzz was hoorrible because of internet bloggers such as the  idiot that writes this column and many other …word of mouth has been amazingly strong … and not the story that is being picked up on in the press is how the american reviewers  and armchair bloggers like the one that runs this column were wrong.

Maybe Graeme should  go to the movie  before trying to comment on it

I’m not a man but I would guess that men don’t really like to look at other men barely clothed or in tight fitting clothes. And unless there are cars and alot of explosions and pretty girls and they have jeans and normal t-shirts on (that most men in the 18 to 35 demographic like to wear) why would they be interested in watching a period piece/alternate reality/alien world that will never exist for them when they can go and actually TEST DRIVE the car in the movie that they’ve just watched in the jeans they and the main character are wearing? I’m just saying…

Because they are stories whose time has come and gone.
Action adventure boys’ movies must relate to something current or at least
somethng relatable to their level of imagination. I saw mostly animated movies
when I was young which scared me, particularly Monstro the whale (sitting in
the front row of the theater) in Pinocchio, and fire-breathing dragons, etc.
These days with all the technologically advanced films and video games that
make violence and carnage universally available and accessible for young minds,
the leap of faith in imagining yourself in a certain story or as a hero just
isn’t there. It’s already been done by a bunch of people who have already
thought it all out and audience-tested everything in order to supposedly make
money on old concepts. They follow the same routine to accomplish the same end
result, making share-holders and investors rich at the expense of creativity and
productions to last a great many years. If you study carefully, films like The
Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, etc., didn’t make big bucks at first. But
look how long they’ve lasted. It’s the craft of the storyteller/writer to
depict what he or she sees in the realm of magination then leave it to
producers/directors/actors and other professionals to design the art of
bringing that vision to life in the confines of a movie. The more you consider
what has gone before, the least likely you are to repeat old themes and ways of
presenting them. Look for something original and stick to a vision of what
audiences, young or old, would want to spend time viewing. If you’re just
making up things to stay busy or make a bundle of money, it doesn’t work that
way. Those who see beyond everyday life to infiltrate happiness and/or thought
into the lessons we’re here to learn would never experience writer’s block.
They already know there’s an endless stream of knowledge, experience and thrill
in life to draw upon.  But, in order to
so so, you must touch the viewer in some way, intellectually or emotionally.
That is very difficult to do in boys’ movies when they’re simply subjected to
endless no-point animation or storylines that prompt no emotional response.
Think of why Old Yeller, Bambi, My Dog Skip or even The Sound of Music retain
their appeal for new-found groups of children world-wide. Listen to the heart.
It never lies.

I am not a boy.  I am a grandmother.  Tron was a little cold.  With that said, I loved Prince of Persia and John Carter.  They were both action packed.  They were both very visual with  great special effects.  They had attractive characters.  I have watched Prince of Persia more than once and will probably do the same with John Carter.

As someone said below its the marketing. People keep bringing up the 90s and Pixar but those are two separate things from the issues with John Carter. You cant compare Aladdin or Lion King to John Carter. They were animated films, Just like with Pixar films which are marketed to families. John Carter was trying to grab the attention of young men but it was dry and made it seem like a B-list film.

“Aggressively pursuing male audiences while ignoring every other
demographic in their marketing campaign is likely part of what doomed
John Carter.”

NOT marketing to “male audiences” is what doomed John Carter.
Emphasizing the “Before Star Wars / before Flash Gordon / before Avatar” aspect, titling it “John Carter and the Princess of Mars”, doing pulp-style posters ala Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and going with a bit of kitsch (the attitiude, not the actor) would’ve gone a long way to selling the movie properly.

It doesn’t matter what the film company is, if they try to make a hit instead of a movie, there’s a good chance they will fail.  That is what happened with each of the moview mentioned above.  Disney tried to make hits.  They should just make a great movie.

If they had actually made a John Carter of Mars movie  based on A Princess of Mars they would have had a hit.  Instead Stanton abandoned the characters, story and narrative of the book and made a cliched mess.

Stanton trashed the source material and he is receiving his just rewards.

I didn’t see anything ‘wrong’ or counter to a ‘real’ action movie with any of the listed flicks.

I also don’t need to see things amped up (ugh!) in order for things to be more ‘boy-ish.’ How sad that this was the spin of the reviewer. Frankly, I’m over the preponderence of gore and guts and cussing and rapes and murders all in the name of sensationalistic competitiveness with other franchises.

Incidentally, the word is “whoa.”

What are we, four? five? movies deep into the Pirates franchise?  It’s easy to make sweeping statements like “Disney can’t build action franchises” when we chose not to look at the whole picture.

Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc…

Versus Lilo and Stitch, the Lion King, really anything Pixar.

Disney’s basically operating off of the same MO as any other era in Disney’s history. Prior to the Princess and the Frog, the last “Princees-centric” Disney feature was Mulan, and calling that a princess oriented film is a bit misleading anyway considering it’s mostly sword-fighting and war that just so happens to have a female protagonist. In that timeframe, we’ve had Aladdin, Lion King, Hercules, Lilo and Stitch, two or three Winnie the Pooh movies, the Emperor’s New Groove, Atlantis, Treasure Planet and others and that is, again, without even touching the Pixar output.

As a male adult, I not only don’t feel uncomfortable taking my daughter to a Disney movie, I outright revel in it because they are on an absolute role. Princess and the Frog is the only thing they’ve put out lately (Animated wise) that I didn’t absolutely love and that one wasn’t really bad, just not entirely up my alley.

Ooooor the fact that the Hunger Games already exists in book format.

Everyone with any critical sense knew Twilight was going to be bad because the book was terrible. I honestly don’t know a thing about Hunger Games one way or the other and won’t pass my own opinion, but there’s nothing particularly prescient about condemning the probable story of a film based on a book. If he didn’t dig the book, he likely won’t like the movie considering the extreme rarity of a film actually being better than the source material.

The Question should be – Why can’t Graeme do an article without using a question and a flawed premise?

Hollywood is out of touch with people anymore in general. We want higher quality films that are worth watching and we are getting a veritable ocean of drab, boring, really ill conceived titles.  Like John Carter of Mars … who the hell was the market for this film … its this new shotgun approach they have.  They have to capture the 14 year old girl market (the main people going to movies apparently these days) as well as senior citizens and they have to do well with foreign audiences and with DVD sales.  That is the impossible combo that they shoot for and they end up with films like Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and this stinker.   

They need to find new business models, ways to make money from smaller segments of the market. Between Hollywood and the television/cable companies you’d think it was still 1984 or something. They need to get with the times. We want HBO, Showtime, NBC, ABC … in an all in one Netflix style package … not a pay for service from each studio/company but bundled streaming media.  When there are endless indie film makers who are more than capable of producing endless compelling, engaging, totally entertaining films … but perhaps films that aren’t going to make a billion at the box office … perhaps just 10 million.  Hollywood needs to think smaller, they need to go back to simply making entertaining films and be less concerned with market data and trending demographics.  We need bold film makers who take risks and make great films and these days due to all the barriers of entry … shockingly … ironically … that is still a feat.   The first studio that really figures out how to deliver more high quality film on smaller scales and in smaller niches is going to not only revolutionize the industry but find new productive revenue streams.

The theater industry desperately needs this sort of revolution as well.  When I have a 60 inch flatscreen at home with a better sound system that my local theater … why do I want to go spend more on tickets and popcorn for just my wife and I than I’d spend to buy a DVD, take my wife out to a nice dinner, and then come home and watch the film with my entire family (owning the DVD to use whenever I felt like watching the film again).  The quality of my home theater really has finally gotten so good that I consider it just as good as what I get at the theater really … with less annoying teenagers, less interruptions from rude patrons, crying babies, etc. etc.  but all that wouldn’t really matter if there were great films that called out to me to go see at a theater.  Here again is where smaller could be a huge shot in the arm for the local cinema.  

Sadly Hollywood is dying on the vine and what it will ultimately morph into is probably another horrific monstrosity (not that you couldn’t argue that it has been that all along) … reality TV … American Idol … Dancing with the Stars … well I’m sure the solution is just around the corner … a path to hell quicker me thinks … who knows though.