Disney Eyes Shift To Original IP To Win Over "Lonely" Gen Z Males Following Recent Marvel, STAR WARS Struggles

Disney Eyes Shift To Original IP To Win Over "Lonely" Gen Z Males Following Recent Marvel, STAR WARS Struggles

With a clear lack of interest in the MCU and Star Wars, Disney is attempting to figure out new ways to bring "lonely, gaming-obsessed" Gen Z males to theaters in the coming years. Read on for details...

By JoshWilding - Aug 27, 2025 01:08 PM EST
Filed Under: Disney
Source: Variety

Taking aside the pandemic years, 2025 will be the first time since 2011 that a superhero movie hasn't grossed over $700 million at the worldwide box office. Deadpool & Wolverine was a $1.3 billion hit last summer, but the likes of Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps failing to come close to replicating that level of success is troubling. 

Disney acquired Marvel and Lucasfilm within a few years of each other in what was a genius move by Bob Iger to make the studio about more than just cartoons and Princesses. However, as interest seemingly diminishes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars franchise, the House of Mouse is going back to the drawing board. 

Variety has revealed that, "Leadership at Walt Disney Studios has been pressing Hollywood creatives in recent months...for movies that will bring young men back to the brand in a meaningful way. 'Young men' is defined here by sources as ages 13-28, aka Gen Z."

The issue with Gen Z, according to multiple studies obtained by the trade, is that Gen Z males are a "lonely, gaming-obsessed group who were hampered in their formative years by COVID-19 lockdowns." So, getting them to buy a movie ticket isn't easy. The hope, now, though, is that original content could draw them to theaters. 

As of now, Gen Z only accounts for roughly 10% of ticket sales, so Disney "has been seeking new IP and pitches such as splashy global adventures and treasure hunts, as well as seasonal fare like films for the Halloween corridor." 

Millennials remain a strong target group for the studio, especially with them taking their kids to live-action remakes of various Disney classics. Gen Z, meanwhile, are proving a tougher nut to crack. 

It's not lost on Disney that Gen Z flocked to A Minecraft Movie, because that's a game they played as children. This could explain why Disney is heavily investing in Fortnite, a video game franchise we're sure to see brought to the big screen in the near future. 

The report concludes, "One top film executive at a Disney rival says every studio should be looking for originals, as sequels and reboots continue to exhaust the culture — even if they’re packing in moviegoers in the short term."

'I never thought I’d say it,' the exec muses about the Magic Kingdom’s boy troubles despite its gem box of iconic IP, 'but it looks like Disney is going to have to start trying.'"

What does this mean for superheroes and Jedi moving forward? That's hard to say, but next year's Avengers: Doomsday and The Mandalorian and Grogu movies look set to be a big test for both brands. 

Are you Gen Z? If so, let us know your take on this news in the comments section below. 

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solskulldeath
solskulldeath - 8/27/2025, 1:09 PM
Nah you need to stop doing the woke things,they just want a real movie with no hidden agenda
regularmovieguy
regularmovieguy - 8/27/2025, 1:23 PM
@solskulldeath

Are these hidden agendas in the room with us now?
Vigor
Vigor - 8/27/2025, 1:45 PM
@solskulldeath - or these [barely] men dont have much to show for themselves. And they want to feel special. So when they see a woman lead in a movie, they ragefit to all their buddies on cbm
Bucky74
Bucky74 - 8/27/2025, 1:56 PM
@solskulldeath - Exactly this! Disney worked very hard feminizing male franchises and now they realize they have a problem of their own making. Too late.
Bucky74
Bucky74 - 8/27/2025, 1:59 PM
@Vigor - Not at all. We all loved Ripley and Sarah Conner, and the first WW with Gal. There’s a big difference between an organically strong female lead and an agenda Girl boss who magically wins and easily defeats the men. What Disney did was basically if they took the Barbie franchise and made Ken the lead who could do no wrong.
TheJok3r
TheJok3r - 8/27/2025, 1:09 PM
The issue with Gen Z, according to multiple studies obtained by the trade, is that Gen Z males are a "lonely, gaming-obsessed group who were hampered in their formative years by COVID-19 lockdowns."

Translation: they're no longer easy to trick into buying our shit, so we're going to insult them instead of putting in the effort to understand where we've gone wrong.
HashTagSwagg
HashTagSwagg - 8/27/2025, 1:10 PM
Insulting them sounds like a good start

User Comment Image
Ryguy88
Ryguy88 - 8/27/2025, 3:07 PM
@HashTagSwagg - "hey, you bunch of assholes, watch our shitty movies you pieces of shit"

There, that'll get them on board.
HistoryofMatt
HistoryofMatt - 8/27/2025, 1:12 PM
It absolutely astounds me that Josh (and to be fair, Variety as well) completely ignores how Disney purchased two of the biggest "boy brands" in the world and then decided, actually purposefully decided, to turn them in Woke girl boss brands.

Just completely gloss over that part, Wilding. Gloss over Kathleen "Put a chick in it and make her gay and lame" Kennedy deciding to crap on everything Lucas built, destroy the heroes of our youth and replace them with a Mary Sue no one likes.

Gloss over how Feige got his way, got the only person with seemingly any common sense at Marvel (Ike Perlmutter) so he could work to replace every Marvel hero with a DEI character from the reviled Marvel Now run in the comics.

Absolutely ridiculous. Disney HAD the two biggest boy brands, and they destroyed them. On purpose. And now they blame the "incel Millennials" for the failure of their Woke bullcrap. Amazing.
TheJok3r
TheJok3r - 8/27/2025, 1:15 PM
@HistoryofMatt - Disney may be one of the richest companies in the world, but they've proven that having money doesn't mean you'll have financial common sense.
Huskers
Huskers - 8/27/2025, 1:12 PM
Whoa!!! They just realized males are their core audience members!!! 🤣 Someone explain to me how Bob Iger and Kathleen Kennedy still have jobs after what’s happened to their Marvel, Star Wars and Indiana Jones IP under their stewardship.
MGSSnake1988
MGSSnake1988 - 8/27/2025, 1:13 PM
Yes, because all those lonely Gen Z males are actually pissed a Captain America with no powers altogether beat a Hulk, original IP should be made for them.

Before anyone says it's just a movie, someone spent $180 million for it to happen, and a lot of people paid for it and left unsatisfied.
Laridian
Laridian - 8/27/2025, 1:21 PM
@MGSSnake1988 - Right, I'm sure it had nothing to do with having a black Captain America... except for the fact that these incels said it over and over and over again that this was what they were mad at.
MGSSnake1988
MGSSnake1988 - 8/27/2025, 1:24 PM
@Laridian - Nothing wrong with him. The problem with Sam, as opposed to Steve who is one of the leads of the Infinity Saga, is his lack of presence in the Multiverse Saga.

His series dropped the ball on his characterization, and his film destroyed his skill set and treated him as a super soldier.
Laridian
Laridian - 8/27/2025, 1:31 PM
@MGSSnake1988 - Right. No, I get it. You're not like all the other people mad at 'Black Captain America' you're different. I know. I've heard it. It's easy to say 'it's the writing' when talking about movies these incels don't like. It's just funny how it's always the same kinds of movies that they seem to have a problem with, though.
Vigor
Vigor - 8/27/2025, 1:39 PM
@Laridian - "the writing is bad" is always codeword for too many women and minorities

Funny thing about DEI is, if a black person has a high earning position.. you know they had to be top of their class and have collected an infinity gauntlet of degrees to get there. But of course the narrative is that it's a DEI hire... dismissing their accomplishments. And then in their place they hire a mediocre you guessed it... white guy
MGSSnake1988
MGSSnake1988 - 8/27/2025, 1:51 PM
@Laridian - It all started with the 2016 Ghostbusters, and it became worse after that ever since.
Laridian
Laridian - 8/27/2025, 1:51 PM
@MGSSnake1988 - Sure. That's where it started. lol
Laridian
Laridian - 8/27/2025, 1:15 PM
Never thought 'NO BITCHES' would turn into an 'epidemic' but here we are.
Sinner
Sinner - 8/27/2025, 1:34 PM
@Laridian - It’ll never not be the weirdest and most uncomfortable thing watching grown men scream at the top of their lungs “NO GIRLS ALLOWED”
Diend
Diend - 8/27/2025, 1:47 PM
@Laridian - Your constant use of the word "incel" doesn’t just expose your ignorance, it makes your lack of intelligence painfully obvious. People like you are always desperate to be offended and thrive on pointless confrontation.
Laridian
Laridian - 8/27/2025, 1:50 PM
@Diend - Oh, I'm sorry. Does the word 'incel' trigger you, little snowflake?
Diend
Diend - 8/27/2025, 1:56 PM
@Laridian - Heh. You’re throwing a tantrum over movie narratives and calling me a snowflake? That’s rich coming from someone clearly allergic to original thought.

Honestly, it’s amusing. You’re just another groupthinker who thinks that spitting out buzzwords like “incel” and “snowflake” makes you edgy. It doesn’t. It just makes you another cliché.
EnergyVamp
EnergyVamp - 8/27/2025, 1:15 PM
I have no issues with woke because X-men is woke but the way Hollywood shoves it in my face without making it feel organic. It just feels like stunt casting and performative rather than organic like Mad Max Fury Road, Aliens, or Terminator 2.
Laridian
Laridian - 8/27/2025, 1:17 PM
@EnergyVamp - Please define 'woke' because you're using it here as a replacement word for 'adding minorities and LGBTQ people' and I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you.
HistoryofMatt
HistoryofMatt - 8/27/2025, 1:21 PM
@EnergyVamp - X-Men were not ever Woke. Woke does not mean Liberal. They are two different and opposed ideologies. Woke is Cultural Marxism that says everyone's virtue or villainy should be decided not by their character, but by their immutable characteristics. Liberal is the literal opposite of that.
foreverintheway
foreverintheway - 8/27/2025, 1:22 PM
@EnergyVamp - People would definitely call Terminator or Terminator 2 "woke" if they came out today because they have a women as the lead, it's that simple. Maybe not you - but it's how people mis-use "woke"
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 8/27/2025, 1:37 PM
@foreverintheway - That's just not true, when the product is actually good and the main character likeable people won't care if it's a woman, a man or an alien as the lead.
amesjazz
amesjazz - 8/27/2025, 1:39 PM
@foreverintheway - No way. Completely disagree. Most people don't care about strong female characters as long as they are written well and you don't dumb down every other character to prop them up. Ripley is a great character surrounded by other strong male characters. Its when the writers clearly don't have confidence in the characters they are creating when people get upset and roll their eyes.
DS616
DS616 - 8/27/2025, 2:25 PM
@EnergyVamp - Sarah Connor literally said "men can't create life, only destroy". If she said that exact same line in the exact same movie released today all you hypocrite dorkwads would be giving Linda Hamilton the Brie Larson/Abby from The Last of Us treatment for the rest of her career as you make and watch endless youtube grifter videos labeling James Cameron and Terminator 2 "woke garbage!!!"
DS616
DS616 - 8/27/2025, 2:27 PM
@foreverintheway - Sarah Connor in T2 was literally a live action version of Abby from The Last of Us, AKA ripped muscles and angry. If that movie released today these hypocrite neckbeards would absolutely despise her.
foreverintheway
foreverintheway - 8/27/2025, 2:54 PM
@DS616 - you nailed it
smgmayhem
smgmayhem - 8/27/2025, 3:00 PM
@HistoryofMatt - Not at all the correct definition.
OrgasmicPotatoe
OrgasmicPotatoe - 8/27/2025, 1:16 PM
How about you just make good entertainment rather than political lectures ? Be it for anyone, male, female, young and old ?

A man can dream...
regularmovieguy
regularmovieguy - 8/27/2025, 1:30 PM
@OrgasmicPotatoe

What political lectures are you getting from Disney movies? Genuine question.
Laridian
Laridian - 8/27/2025, 1:54 PM
@regularmovieguy - Good question. Haven't seen one yet.
MGSSnake1988
MGSSnake1988 - 8/27/2025, 2:07 PM
@regularmovieguy - Will provide one from a series, for the argument's sake.

"You've got to do better, Senator. You've gotta step up."
regularmovieguy
regularmovieguy - 8/27/2025, 2:17 PM
@MGSSnake1988

Okay, that's a good one. That whole finale was terribly written.
MGSSnake1988
MGSSnake1988 - 8/27/2025, 2:23 PM
@regularmovieguy - And one of the worst that came from the MCU.

Was so excited to see that ending, and got immediately disappointed for how terrible it is, the horrible lecture being part of it.
JoshWilding
JoshWilding - 8/27/2025, 1:17 PM
The incel generation (not all, obviously, but it is alarming to see the attitudes so many of these Gen Z boys and men have).
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