'Bro-Busters' Missing The Movie Mark With Women

The following is a selection from Brandon Katz of Greenlight Analytics

Lost amid the seemingly constant conversations around box office declines are that many titles still aren't doing a great job of marketing to women. Falling short there has led to a lower among women desire to go see movies in theaters, and then lower attendance as a result. Somehow, the industry still hasn't learned enough from the success of Barbie.

• Data from Greenlight Analytics' The Quorum service shows the gender gap among many top genre movie "blockbuster" attempts of the 2020s, where theatrical intent for men outpaces the marks for women.
• And in most cases, the gaps are pretty significant: There was a 15-point gap for Superman (DC) this month, and an 11-point difference on Marvel's Thunderbolts* earlier this season (despite that film primarily starring a woman, in Florence Pugh).
• That gender gap has an impact on two fronts in today's market: Women will just sit out the movie (in theaters, at least) if they don't want to see it. And if they're not going, it also has a secondary effect of making some men less likely to see it, too.

To that last point, The Quorum data points to movies like Wicked (higher score for women by theatrical intent) as exceptions that prove the value of the opposite focus.

You can read the full breakdown of the data on TVREV, where this first appeared.