AGATHA ALL ALONG: New Stills Reveal First Look At Aubrey Plaza In Her Green Witch Costume

@mountainman -

@clintthahamster - We will all see in the viewership numbers won’t we?

Looking at MCU specifically, about 65% of its viewing audience has traditionally been male. Not as high as Star Wars 80% traditional male audience, but still a good majority.

Past attempts at making female focused projects haven’t brought more women into watching the MCU. These folks are making products that a lot of people don’t want to watch. Ignoring your target market is the stupidest thing a business can do. Expanding to new markets can only work if you don’t ditch your old customers or you attract a whole lot of new ones. I’m really not thinking this Agatha show is going to be as popular with women as Stanley pivoting to those overpriced thermos’s all the women love these days.

@Apophis71 - No group is a monolith. I wasn’t claiming they were, but outliers don’t deny the existence of trends. Barbie had a mostly female audience. Marvel and Star Wars have a mostly male audience. These are just factual observations and of course some people buck these trends.

Anecdotes do not contradict data and trends.

@Apophis71 - As long as it doesn’t lose the old audience. It seems quite obvious to me that Marvel, Star Wars, Lord of the rings and multiple traditionally male dominated properties have lost part of their old audiences in recent years. If a company is trying to broaden their audience, they alienate a large portion of their old customer base while not attracting a large enough portion of their new customer base to replace the ones lost, it’s a bad business decision.

Either way, these hypotheticals are pretty pointless. We don’t know how this show will do yet. To me it looks 100% unappealing and I have no intention to ever watch it. It’ll join in with She Hulk, Ms Marvel, Secret Invasion and Echo as D+ shows I’ll never watch. But my opinion is just that of one person. Yours is the opinion of a different person. We don’t know the overall sentiment towards the show yet.

@mountainman - Bottom line, people that refuse to even give a Marvel or Star Wars show a chance, the ones that decide they hate a show before it airs, those people are a tiny, tiny fraction of fandom (if you can even call them fans at this point.) Most people look at Marvel or Star Wars the same way they look at Mission: Impossible or James Bond. They either watch it, or they don't, but they don't make that decision their entire personality.

@mountainman - "We all have limited time. Nobody watches every show in existence. People look at trailers, things they hear about a show, and brand recognition to decide if something is worth their time."

Not sure where you got the idea that I disagree with this, but it's obviously true.

"A few years ago, there was a much larger group of people that would watch Marvel or Star Wars than there are today. This is pretty undeniable."

Also obviously true. But the problem isn't that they now make some female-lead movies and TV shows.

The MCU is in the midst of its 16th year. The 4th graders that stared wide-eyed at Iron Man and First Avenger are out of college now, starting new careers, and in some cases, families. The college kids that turned out for those early movies are trying to get their kids off to high school and applying to colleges. The parents that took their kids to see Captain America are empty-nesters now, retired and loving life. Meanwhile, the MCU's lore and continuity has become wildly complex, with hundreds of hours of movies and TV shows required for a complete understanding, something that many new viewers simply won't be willing to do. So yeah, the MCU is losing viewers, maybe even faster than they're gaining new ones. So they're branching out to new audiences, trying to strengthen their base. It's a good thing!

"Outside of D&W, the box office receipts have been declining for a while now."

Box office receipts are down across the board. 2023 was down 40% compared to 2019, and per-movie averages have been declining for nearly a decade, with 2023's averages less than half that of 2015. People have less money, and more ways to spend it.

"D+ viewer numbers have also gone down in recent years."

D+ launched during a global pandemic and lead off with two critically acclaimed TV shows from two wildly popular franchises. They had first-run movies and stuff from the "Disney Vault" which hadn't been available on home video for years, if ever. I would be shocked if they didn't lose viewers as folks made their way through the content library and started getting back out into the world.

"it seems like your assertion that the people not watching are a minority can be easily disproven by the numbers."

The minority I was referring to was people who refuse to watch shows on principle, those that would be considered part of the core fan base, but who find reasons hate shows and refuse to watch them as soon as they're announced. People who say things like "I refused to watch this show" before a single review, without watching a single episode. I'd never argue that viewership for MCU, Star Wars, and Disney product in general wasn't declining, but it's not because they're making shows with women, I promise.

"If they make stuff that appeals to their target audience, like Deadpool & Wolverine, they are rewarded for it."

Yes, low risk fan service is a great way to put asses in seats. Speaking only for myself, though, I like it when they try new things.

"Let’s touch base on this again once Agatha comes out to see what the response is like to see which one of us is right."

Man, let's not. Neither of our claims are particularly measurable. I say "there's an audience for this show, and it might be more than you expect." You say "Shows and movies that don't cater to the broadest possible audience's expectations are destined to fail, and not only do they not bring in new viewers, they drive old viewers away." Neither is empirically measurable.

My prediction is that the post-release conversation will be very similar to The Acolyte: Some dudes will say "The worst show ever, another failed attempt by Disney to cater to the Woke Mob, glad I'll never watch it!" and other dudes will say "It's not the best, but I'm enjoying it. You should check it out," and then that cycle will repeat itself for 8 weeks, and then we'll all move on to the next show that people will continue to complain about despite never having any intention of watching it.

@mountainman - Back atcha, tiger.

Touching grass sounds lovely. I've been raising every picture frame in my den up by 2.5" because my wife wanted to rearrange. Oh, and our AC is out.

@The1st - True, and TBH a Black Widow film I would prefer was more of an actual espionage thing, less so an action one even tho that still would be part of it. It was an OK film, enjoyed it dispite it's issues (esp Yelena more so than Nat TBH for me) but very average going the route they did and the strange choices like a flying red room, sticking a female head on a male Taskmasters body in post and the pheromone control stuff.

@Order66 - I need to know if this is true, and if so, I need details

@MarkCassidy - oh it’s true. Met her thru one of my friends who attended New York University School of Arts. They were friends with her. Went out to a house party and flirted all night and then after we hooked up. One time thing. I was attending a college elsewhere in NY so never saw her again.

@MarkCassidy - she is a freak lol. The good kind tho. We just hit it off that night and ended up going back to her place and did it. Left in the am and never saw her again. My friend lost contact with her after they graduated college and Aubrey went off to Hollywood and made a name for herself. I’m sure you made college friends and then after graduation you slowly lose touch with them but still have their FB. It was like that between Aubrey and my friend. Still can’t believe she ended up being famous lol

@Order66 - Man I actually believed you for ten seconds.....need to write your fanfictions better [frick]ing hell.

@Order66 -

@dragon316 - You've become very opinionated lately. Not hating. Just interesting is all.