Sony Spin-Off Silk: Spider Society

[psylockolussus]

Crazy that this thread was created way back in 2018...

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[psylockolussus]

Mess as usual.

 

[TheVileOne]

How is that going to work exactly? Sounds like Sony has no idea what they are doing here and they don't respect the creators' vision.

 

[SirStrangefolk]

Is this Sony taking the wrong lessons from Madame Web?
Seems like the wrong move for sure.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Almost all comic book movies and shows have a majority male audience if you look at the yearly released MPAA reports and or Deadline posting the demographic breakdowns (the first Wonder Woman movie was one of the only exceptions.)

‘Bob Marley: One Love’ Feels Alright With $52M; ‘Madame Web’ Crawls To $26M, But Will Lose Her Legs – Monday AM Box Office Update

Presidents Day box office will see Bob Marley: One Love win with $35M-$38M, while Sony's 'Madame Web' crashes with $20M.

deadline.com

Sony went after young women with Madame Web, with 75% of its $60M global P&A allocated toward social and Tik Tok. The Marvel Spider-Man spinoff property is bringing in men 53% and women 47%. PostTrak scores have fallen to a star and a half and 54% positive; nobody likes this movie. Men over 25 are attending the most at 31% (50% grade), followed by women over 25 at 24% (63% grade), women under 25 at 23% (62% grade) and men under 25 at 22% (the pic’s worst grades at 42%).

I’m told that S.J. Clarkson, the filmmaker, aimed to make a non-traditional Marvel movie, something in the spirit of the female thrillers that Sherry Lansing use to make at Paramount; and it’s all going sideways. I’ve gotten phone calls that the budget for this film is much higher at north of $100M. But I’m also told Sony reigned it under net $100M with Massachusetts tax credits and post production London tax credits, where the VFX were handled. TSG is a cofinancier here on the Dakota Johnson-Sydney Sweeney movie, as Sony has buffered its risk. I understand if they can get to a $40M-$50M global opening, the spider bite from Madame Web won’t gush a lot of red ink, but some.

For those wondering why Sony had the scribes from the doomed Morbius (Matt Sazama and Buck Sharpless) back here for Madame Web, I understand they wrote the first draft of the script, and that Clarkson’s writing partner, Claire Parker, yielded the shooting script. This was a chance for Sony to do something different, but there were a lot of complications along the way. It also doesn’t help to have this female-driven superhero movie arrive in the wake of The Marvels, which is the lowest for Disney MCU at $84.5M domestic, $206M WW.

‘The Marvels’ Meltdown: Disney MCU Posts Lowest B.O. Opening Ever At $47M — What Went Wrong – Sunday Update

‘The Marvels’ is heading to the lowest opening ever for a Disney MCU pics at $47M-$55M. despite its stars’ last-minute promotion after the actors strike deal.

deadline.com

Other diagnostics on The Marvels: 65% male leaning, with 45% men over 25,

Pretty much no matter how hard they try for a female audience, they do not succeed.

 

[Pennywise]

I get the feeling Kang will eventually walk away or be replaced.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

You mean having female leads doesn't automatically increase the female audience for your superhero movie? Shocking.

 

[TheVileOne]

Is it really such a radical thing to just say make it good?

I mean with the executives at work here, yes in theory.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

I am not familiar with SILK as a character, but... does she have a massive female audience? Is the same demo that went to see Barbie multiple times in the theater really the target audience for this?

Seems like most action/adventure stuff and superhero stuff skews towards a mostly male audience, no matter what gender the lead character is, or who is writing or directing. Wonder Woman 2017 seems to be the exception to that rule.

 

[Venom 1988]

I am not familiar with SILK as a character, but... does she have a massive female audience? Is the same demo that went to see Barbie multiple times in the theater really the target audience for this?

Seems like most action/adventure stuff and superhero stuff skews towards a mostly male audience, no matter what gender the lead character is, or who is writing or directing. Wonder Woman 2017 seems to be the exception to that rule.

Kind of hard to compare to Barbie. My girlfriend saw Barbie 3 times in the theater and she is not a fan of Barbie (the IP) at all lol. But ignoring that for a moment, IMO the core female demo that is into Barbie is not the same demo that's into Silk. I think Barbie as an IP has a much greater reach (for better or worse) to all types of women than Silk does. Though part of that is due to how long Barbie has been around as well.

But that's not to say a Silk show couldn't reach a big female audience, I think it just comes down to both execution and quality. I feel if the Barbie movie was missing the message Greta Gerwig was conveying, I don't think it would have been nearly as succesful. Even if it was still considered good but that's just me.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Kind of hard to compare to Barbie. My girlfriend saw Barbie 3 times in the theater and she is not a fan of Barbie (the IP) at all lol. But ignoring that for a moment, IMO the core female demo that is into Barbie is not the same demo that's into Silk. I think Barbie as an IP has a much greater reach (for better or worse) to all types of women than Silk does. Though part of that is due to how long Barbie has been around as well.

But that's not to say a Silk show couldn't reach a big female audience, I think it just comes down to both execution and quality. I feel if the Barbie movie was missing the message Greta Gerwig was conveying, I don't think it would have been nearly as succesful. Even if it was still considered good but that's just me.

SILK could reach a big female audience, but the thing is... does she HAVE TO, in order to be successful?

It seems the big expectation when a female director is hired to direct a female lead action thing (which most superhero stuff falls into), that they are going to bring some mythical female audience along with them. That expectation is not realistic, and is not helping these projects at all. That is why I don't think Sony is entirely wrong here (even though I have zero faith that their live action Spider-Man movies are going to be good). What sense does it make to keep marketing to a demographic that most of the time doesn't show up for superhero stuff, or most action stuff?

 

[SirStrangefolk]

Almost all comic book movies and shows have a majority male audience if you look at the yearly released MPAA reports and or Deadline posting the demographic breakdowns (the first Wonder Woman movie was one of the only exceptions.)

Pretty much no matter how hard they try for a female audience, they do not succeed.

SILK could reach a big female audience, but the thing is... does she HAVE TO, in order to be successful?

It seems the big expectation when a female director is hired to direct a female lead action thing (which most superhero stuff falls into), that they are going to bring some mythical female audience along with them. That expectation is not realistic, and is not helping these projects at all. That is why I don't think Sony is entirely wrong here (even though I have zero faith that their live action Spider-Man movies are going to be good). What sense does it make to keep marketing to a demographic that most of the time doesn't show up for superhero stuff, or most action stuff?

But why design your show specifically for an audience of a specific gender in the first place? What do Sony executives understand "focus on a male-skewing audience" to mean here? Maybe instead of trying to design "a show that men like" or "a show that women like", they could just let a creator make a show that fits their creative vision and trust it will bring an audience? Or make a show that focusses on the things that the source material did well?

 

[AndrewGilkison]

But why design your show specifically for an audience of a specific gender in the first place? What do Sony executives understand "focus on a male-skewing audience" to mean here? Maybe instead of trying to design "a show that men like" or "a show that women like", they could just let a creator make a show that fits their creative vision and trust it will bring an audience? Or make a show that focusses on the things that the source material did well?

Knowing who your target audience is is how you make something good in the first place. You can't write for an audience unless you know who the audience is. You can't relate to them or create stuff that makes them feel or generate emotion out of them, unless you can relate to that audience yourself, as a creator, and know what they want and what makes them feel.

That is why a lot of modern stuff is sucking and not finding an audience. Too many franchises and shows don't seem to know who their audience is, so they wind up appealing to no one, and most of the creatives are inexperienced and some get hired without even being fans of the thing they are working on, and don't have the talent to cover up that lack of product knowledge, and the studios don't seem to give a ****.

What is SILK's audience? What do the fans of that property want from it? Is the person they hired even a good fit for it?

 

[Another_Fool]

What is SILK's audience? What do the fans of that property want from it? Is the person they hired even a good fit for it?

My avatar says I'm the damn target.

 

[TheVileOne]

Silk is a minor, obscure Spider-Man offshoot character. She doesn't have much of a target audience. The majority of people who watch the show aren't going to be comic book readers, just like many of the people watching Dune this weekend have likely never read any of the books or even picked up a book in their life.

Specifically saying the show is going to be aimed at a male-skewing audience. I mean OK I guess, but girls like superhero movies too.

The problem here is that studio executives and corporations don't care about the story or source material. They just care about the IP and developing content. They don't care about what's right or makes sense for the character. Case in point, forcing Kraven to become a solo movie franchise and restricting him from appearing in an actual Spider-Man movie.

 

[Another_Fool]

Specifically saying the show is going to be aimed at a male-skewing audience. I mean OK I guess, but girls like superhero movies too.

Yeah I have no idea what that even means especially considering it's supposed to be a series not a movie - like why was it gender skewing anything? If they were going to skew any way it would be towards the Asian demographic particularly the Korean to Korean-American experience which Silk always was more concerned about. It's important she's a woman and that she's Korean. Just tell a good story, and hope just the connection to the SpiderMan universe rakes in some numbers.

I dunno, I had gotten a little hopeful when Lord & Miller were producing and when Kang got chosen as showrunner but I'm pessimistic now.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah, take Squid Game of example. Is Squid Game specifically a gender-skewing show? Maybe it is because of the male leads and it's very dark and graphic, but that's not all specifically gender-skewing. So I don't get it either.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Specifically saying the show is going to be aimed at a male-skewing audience. I mean OK I guess, but girls like superhero movies too.

That is why I cringe when studios go into pander mode ("The Force Is Female!") when they center these things on a female lead, and suddenly try to chase an audience that isn't there. They don't understand that women who like this stuff like it for a lot of the same reasons guys like it, and want mostly the same things out of it that guys do. They don't care about being pandered to. Its more condescending and insulting than anything else, because now suddenly every female lead superhero thing has to be about "girl power" and "girl boss" when most women who watch this stuff don't care about that crap. It always just comes off as a studio executive who is out of touch, trying to appeal to women without understanding women who are fans, and or women who are non-fans, and what either of them actually want.

These studios need to realize that the primary purpose of these things is to entertain. Not to cure the social ills of the world. Not to be an activist. Its to entertain.

Give the audience what they actually want to see, something that appeals to them, and they will show up. If you don't have what the audience wants to see, they won't show up. Its as simple as that.

 

[SirStrangefolk]

Knowing who your target audience is is how you make something good in the first place. You can't write for an audience unless you know who the audience is. You can't relate to them or create stuff that makes them feel or generate emotion out of them, unless you can relate to that audience yourself, as a creator, and know what they want and what makes them feel.

They don't understand that women who like this stuff like it for a lot of the same reasons guys like it, and want mostly the same things out of it that guys do. [...] It always just comes off as a studio executive who is out of touch, trying to appeal to women without understanding women who are fans, and or women who are non-fans, and what either of them actually want.

Yep. If I'd ask someone "Who is your audience, and how are you using this information" and their answer was "In the past our similar products have had about a 60/40 split between men and women, so we have a majority male audience and will appeal to them by focussing on what we think a male skewing audience wants to see", I'd think they don't really know their audience at all. Like you said, what do those men and women have in common that makes them like these movies? They're not going to see them because of their man-ness or woman-ness, they're going because they like something about the content of the movie.

Silk is a minor, obscure Spider-Man offshoot character. She doesn't have much of a target audience.

She doesn't have much of a built-in audience, but she does have a target audience. A target audience is just they audience they are trying to reach, and even I don't think Sony is intentionally trying to limit their audience to exclusively people who are already fans of the comic. A lot of people who would've never read the Lord of the Rings became fans of Peter Jackson's movies, and people who have never touched a manga or anime became enamoured with Netflix' One Piece. While those franchises both certainly had a larger built-in audience than Silk, the adaptations also did a great job at translating the things that made them appealing to an audience in the first place to a more accessible medium so it could reach more people. That's what these movies and shows should also be doing: Take what people liked from the original and adapt that into a more accessible form.


Here's an interesting quote from someone who may have some interesting insight into Sony's approach here:

"It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that get made — and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones, which is what’s really freaking me out — decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee. Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms. My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullsht. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fcking want to see those." ​

- Dakota Johnson (source)

 

[TheVileOne]

I don't think that strategy for Silk is going to work.