Does anyone else feel as though there's a kid-ifaction of pop media? Like look at the use of blood in old school robocop vs the new one. I hate to be like "wahh disney" but idk I feel like their style of filmmaking is bleeding into more and more of media and I very much know it's to do with the PG-13 gets more people in seats, but part of me yearns for and knows that Disney will never make anything like Spiderman Blue because it doesn't alline with traditional Judo-christian-values, and it's odd that we just kind of accept this.

Like idk it's kinda frustrating that few blockbusters feel like they're for adults.

I posted this on reddit and I'm just asking here to see if y'all feel the same, cause I see little to know discourse and frustration about this topic, so I'm curious

Reddit moment

no

Thats because they aren't for adults per se. All this s*** nowadays is just to capture our longing for nostalgia. there is hardly anything new, just the same IPs being rehashed over and over

Kid's movies used to be fun for children with the odd joke for the parents. A lot of them now feel like they are meant to coddle the parents and to be taken as a serious, meaningful piece of art. I'd call that adult-ification.

Also, PG-13 and R rated movies just make less money. Getting a family in the theater sells 3-5 tickets.

You have to reach the lowest common denominator.
Tween stuff does that

Yea but like it just feels like media in general is getting dumbed down, less nuance, less mature content. Like it's wild that to me Titanic is one of the best selling films of all time because that wouldn't work today

Avatar did and probably will do it again.

they're the only population bringing money

you cant spend all your life watching movies for free online and expect companies to invest as much in your demographic as they do on family friendly s*** that sells tickets and merch

niche movies used to flop at the box office and make all their money back with DVDs thanks to word of mouth but that's not possible anymore

:(

People don't even f*** with avatar. Like people are literally being marketed and grassrooted into liking it in real time

Wrong, A24 has been a huge financial success.

maybe if you’re only into theme park movies

Capitalism

Well you already mentioned the money involved so there is not much left to say.

Of course but I enjoy a good blockbuster, something like FFC's Dracula wouldn't get made today, because of how dark it is. Like i just in general feel as though there's a lack of darkness/more mature themes and ideas in these blockbuster

sTRONG USER NAME TO POST TITLE RATIO

Not everything has to be dark and gritty and brooding man

Tho i kinda get where you coming from

“fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities” - Alec Guinness

I mean the easy answer is because it’s what makes money.

Let’s look at The Suicide Squad.

Big R Rated comic book movie that’s a sequel/reboot to a hugely successful PG-13 film that made $746M. The R Rated more adult sequel only made $165M on a $185M budget

Sure you can point to the lackluster quality of the first and the HBO Max availability but ultimately it wasn’t a movie that parents could take their kids to.

That’s the bottom line for big studios in 2021: the four quadrant picture.

Spider-Man: No Way Home made almost the entire Worldwide Box Office take of The Suicide Squad in one day in the United States alone. Why? It’s a 4 quadrant picture that everyone has interest in.

It seems like the only studio who is willing to make big adult-oriented blockbusters is Warner Bros.

HBO Max aside, Dune was successful. The Matrix Resurrections, the jury is out but based on its release date, it might not do so well.

I could go into this whole other thing about everything I named in this post being tied to existing IP but I would hope we all know why that’s the case.

Original blockbusters seldom make huge box office.

The Titanic still falls under Hollywood's four quadrant film model, appealing to both male and female, and both over- and under-25s.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying little things like the lack of blood in the new robocop. I know it's not movies but like how Halo a game with 5 entries just dropped from an M to T rating.

I don't need dark and brooding but I'm tired of everything feeling hyper comic and juvenile

Majority of the best selling games are rated M and are getting gorier and gorier.

Look at The Last of Us Pt. II, and gore still exists in films, but don’t forget we had that whole torture p*** fad from mid 2000s that lasted like a decade.

Plus s*** is bleak nowadays in reality, people want escapism from it because in a lot of ways the direction of the world is out of their control.

As an aside, don’t forget how huge of a phenomenon Squid Games was.

Why make something specifically targeted for adults and make less money than make a movie for everybody to be able to watch?

It's about making money. PG/PG-13 blockbusters have a much higher chance to make a f*** ton more money than R-rated blockbusters.

Not saying that I support it by the way. Just saying that the "kid-ifcation" of big blockbuster movies is to allow younger demographics to see them, thus making more money.

I'll say this though, it probably won't really matter all that much in the future as movies will likely be making their way to DSPs more than theaters and everybody is gonna be able to watch them at home regardless of age. That responsibility will be in the parents' hands as to what they'll allow their kids to watch or not.

Edit: For a good and possibly equally example, look at video games. Back in the day games that were normally rated E or T would sell a whole lotta copies as they can be more accessed by kids, teenagers, adults alike. However with the advent of buying/downloading games digitally from things like Steam, Xbox Live, PSN, etc...and parents just not giving a f*** even more than usual, ESRB ratings likely do not have the same impact on how games sell that it once used to. It will eventually become this way for movies as well. The pandemic closing down movie theaters probably sped that up.

It’s basically a franchise at this point like a tarentino or a wes anderson movie