"average audience member"?

There's been alot of talk around the board about Disney marketing to such a person, what such a person knows and/or wants, and whether or not there is such a thing. Post your opinion.

Another TFN member told me it would be a good idea to start this thread.

 

Average = Boring
Average Audiance member = low gross opening $$$

 

What do you mean

 

If disney was to market this to an average audiance member then they will lose money like they did with John Carter!!!!

 

You really don't know who the average audience member is? I thought everyone in this star system would know him.

He fought in the Ponyland Conflicts for the Triumvirat of Evil. Average audience member was Imperial Grand King Der Fette's personal adjudant and got slain by Psyana Starchaper herself during the Siege of Jainashan.

 

Average audience member=

SPECTACLED DORK.

 

They do look at these things. There's no generic audience member out there, but outside of this echo-chamber, people approach SW (and movies in general) very differently to hardcore fans.

You want a major hit? You want to hit all four quadrants. In this case, that means appeal to fans of the OT but also get in new blood that the under-25s can identify with. Include a strong female lead/co-lead and also include a romantic subplot beyond the action and adventure. If they hit all these marks and the elements feel organic and authentic, Disney/LFL will be looking at a huge success.

Not surprisingly, this was the approach used on TRON: Legacy (which grossed $400m worldwide despite being the sole sequel to a then-28 year old cult film favoured mostly by computer geeks). They appealed to older fans by including Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner; they appealed to younger audiences by having young, attractive leads and they appealed to women with a romantic subplot; they of course appealed to men with the action and adventure. It's the same template that will be used for Episode VII, whose built-in market dwarfs Tron's by several orders of magnitude.

 

Here's a good example of an "average audience member."

I waited in line to see AOTC in digital projection. A Spider-man movie was playing in the theater next door. A couple "frat guys" walked by and yelled "Hey, nerds! Waiting for Star Wars!" ...As they walked into a theater TO WATCH A COMIC BOOK MOVIE.

That is the average audience member.

 

That was great!!!!

 

Yeah, good one! And to top that off, the last three Spider-Man movies sucked. Topher Grace as Brock/Venom? What the ****...?

 

Yhea, The 70's show fame must have got him that role and was plain AWFUL in it.

 

Average audience member needs a good story line which has continuity from episode 1-6 in a generic way, good character development and action with good effects. I think all that may be a given, maybe (so long as Disney learns from Lucas' mistakes with the prequels). Average audience member is in good hands. The thing is most people who go to see Star Wars are not average audience members. It's an iconic film (series). There's millions of us who will see it in the theaters two, three, four times (if it's worth it). They NEED to take fans into account. They're the crack dealers and we are the addicts. Their no1 customers.

 

I agree with this. In a general sense SW is beloved all over the world. But to say there is an average audience member is impossible. Avatar is the highest grossing film ever but I thought the story was lame -- Pocahantas in space. The 3D was cool, but overall the movie was crap IMO. But it was highly successful. Go figure.

 

The thing is, mass appeal doesn't have to equate to aiming for the lowest common denominator. Just look at the original Star Wars for evidence of that.

When someone says "The average moviegoer doesn't want..." what they're saying is that a film that lacks certain qualities will more than likely appeal to a niche market. Look at, say, Terry Gilliam's Brazil: it's deliberately confronting, subverting audience expectations at almost every turn. It's one of my favourite movies, but it was never going to be as successful as a much more conventionally crowd-pleasing film like Back to the Future (released the same year). Even The Empire Strikes Back, with its moment of complete despair right at the climax, makes sure the audience leaves feeling emotionally uplifted.

Like it or not, Star Wars is a franchise with mass appeal. Episode VII will surely not be a rote blockbuster, but neither will the filmmakers deliberately limit its appeal. This will be a crowd-pleasing space adventure film that leaves the audience smiling as the credits roll.

 

Well you can make a movie for the general audience & it may or may not work but you first off have to write a story that works in the context of your universe ....so pandering to the general audience would be ignoring most of the EU as an example .

 

The average movie goer will boost attendance at movies like Avengers & Avatar and as seen by sales they are getting a little picky as to what they see in theater.
I imagine there is many a conversation today as to whether to see a movie in theater or wait to see it via other technology. I guess another factor would be is your peer/group of friends going, in a night out, as a person goes for the social aspect as well. Sometimes there is a movie you are on the line about but people contact you and say, you want to go, and then you go. It works both ways, I have tons of friends that will say to me want to catch the new Star Wars movie, and I will say I already saw it at the midnight showing, but sure lets go. I have no friends that would say want to go see the latest twilight movie.

 

Is there any such thing as an Average movie goer?

 

It is kind of hard to come up with an "average audience member."

Average in what sense? Age? Race?

There are a lot of things that are hard to quantify under this kind of topic, but one thing is certain: sites like this have fans that are the exception, not the rule. This is far from a random sample since these are hardcore fans, so they are unlikely to be a good representation of the average audience member. The vast majority of SW fans are casual fans that are not crazy enough about the series to register on a site and blog about it. This is a small fraction of a percentage point, and again, an exceptional sample.

I think the audience they would like to hook the most is the younger audience. People over 40 know what they like, and are far more likely to either go to all of the movies or none of them, depending on their preconceptions of SW before the ST ever came out. On the other hand, for the younger generations, a good episode 7 could hook them on SW, and decide whether they explore all of the other elements of the SW universe (or at least will determine whether they go see Epsiode 8 and 9).

Advertisers usually target the younger audience for this reason (older folks have already decided the brands they want, movies they like, companies they use for services, etc.).

 

I don't even think that you can generalise particular age groups. It's all down to individual tastes.

 

It just isn't accurate in any way!

 

You can generalize about age groups though, that is the kind of thing that generalization is all about (i.e. that is why it is a generalization, it doesn't apply to everyone or everyone in a particular group, but is generally true or true the majority of the time).

You can do stats on age, and see what appeals to particular age groups. You can get an average age of SW fans, that would be easy enough because it is just math. There is, of course, a wide variation, with many exceptions to the average, but that is why it is a generalization (not an absolute rule, which there are very few of in terms of human behavior).

Companies absolutely look at the average age when they advertise or promote proucts of any kind; age is a very important determinant factor for sales.

I am sure they will make sure the ST appeals to a younger audience (not that they don't want it to appeal to a broad audience, but that is likely the most important demographic for everything, e.g. sales of toys and other products as well as movie tickets and DVD sales). We were having this discussion in another thread about the live action TV series, which Lucas and McCallum had stated concerns about because the stories are NOT likely to appeal to kids.