Is every major franchise being geared for kids these days?
 

Disney wants Star Wars to be a family-centric franchise for kids. Disney wants the Avengers movies to appeal to both kids and adults. Spiderman is being aimed at young adults. DC got blasted for Batman/Superman being too dark and brooding among a poor script and character. Nick wants TMNT to be aimed at kids.

It seems like every major property from Disney, DC, Marvel, Star Wars, TMNT, is all being aimed at kids rather than adults these days. How do you feel about this?

As a teen I say good, so many movies Adults today can watch. However, I wouldn't mind some dark movies\shows since that is where all the fun is.

Kids are where the merch money is at.

Parents' pockets are only so deep.

More profit if you appeal to a wider audience.

Though is saddens me if everything has to be made into "a kid's thing" and adults can't have our version, too, of this stuff we also like. I'm not one of those people who feel that things have to have adult content (in terms of blood and guts, etc) in order to be adult, but with Nick running a series, I'd rather that the movies aim at a tween/teen to adult audience, not 6-year-olds.

All of those examples (ironically not TMNT) were created for kids in the first place. I don’t want to be ‘that guy’, but we’re talking about fairy stories and people jumping around in funny costumes. It is kid's stuff.

Marvel Studios raised the box office bar into the sky. You just can't make that kind of money without an all-audiences appeal.

Yes, yadda yadda, Deadpool, yadda yadda - anomaly.

But hey, X-Men still droppin' them f-bombs.

Capt America Civil War had Spiderman shouting "Holy ****!" when Antman became giant. Uncensored language.

Ooooh he said a bad word!

Franchises can create different sides of the same thing that is geared towards both kids and adults, or keep them separate. Nick shows the 2k12 TMNT for the families, while the IDW TMNT comic is geared mostly towards the adults.

It isn't uncommon for most franchises to create appeal for both sides.

That can't be the first time they've used that word in the MCU.

Definitely not. There was a "bastard" in a recent episode of AoS for example, but that's probably aimed at a slightly higher audience anyhow.

Not to mention Drax calling Gamora whore, and some of the other words directed at her in the Kiln. And Star Lord doing that bit with his finger, calling Ronan a b*tch, etc.... just because it's supposedly geared toward families doesn't mean they have to ignore older audiences.

Cubed's probably the only one who thinks the PG13 rating means it's a kid's rating, lol.

Well, for all practical intents and purposes, it is. I'm assuming it used to be much harder for kids to get into PG-13 and R films.

It is. That's why so many films try so hard to get that golden rating that communicates it's a serious movie, but also means that all the kiddies can see it too. It's a broken system.

Major motion pictures are a mass market product, by nature. It shouldn't surprise anyone that they target the widest audience possible. It's not like comics, where you can just print the number you expect to sell. It's just now being shown that maybe R-rated superhero movies can work, though not necessarily with more broadly-appealing characters. But the PG-13 ones are always going to make more money. If you thought the campaign for PG-13 Deadpool edit was annoying, wait until someone tries an R-rated Batman.

It definitely is broken because I can think of a bunch of horror movies that have that rating and definitely aren't geared towards kids.

I remember seeing a lot of shocked parents walk out after seeing BvS.

Parents might want to start doing the tiniest bit of research. This assumption that everything with a superhero is okay for kids is become less and less true. But I sure would hate to be the kid who doesn't get to see this stuff.