Who was Disney's target demographic with Into the Woods? — Page 2

If you go to any movie, though, you'll see parents who just bring their kids to any movie, despite any rating or appropriateness. There were kids when I saw the new Chris Rock movie, which is not trying at all to be a soft-R, and I even remember kids being bored and confused (as they should have been) at Gravity, and even midnight movies will have people bringing babies. It seems a lot of people bring their kids to whatever movie they want to see rather than hire a babysitter... so, I wouldn't try to read too much into this. If people only go by the trailer to decide whether to buy tickets, that's sort of on them. Finding out this is a musical isn't much of a mystery.

Just spent the week leading up to Christmas at Disneyland, and marketing there for Into the Woods is almost non-existent. Just movie posters set up outside the theater in the Downtown area.

Considering how much Disney is marketing its other current properties there like Big Hero 6, it seems that they have chosen very deliberately not to focus on Into the Woods for children, despite the rating. A wise choice.

You people are all crazy. What kind of 6 year-old needs to be exposed to Into the Woods? Regardless of the quality of the show, the ending could be described as bittersweet at best. Do 6 year-olds really need to see their favorite characters get killed off? Most of you are talking about children needing to be exposed to such sophisticated entertainment, but come on, we are talking about really young children. Young children should be exposed to magic and miracles, which is why we have Santa Claus. What are you teaching these kids at such a young age? That happy endings aren't real and life sucks? Little kids don't need to know that!

I'm seeing it later today and I'd have to say that although Broadwayworld.com loves it, and a lot of my theatre friends do as well, from what I've seen it doesn't seem like the general public is as crazy about it. I would say it was received well (and certainly better than Les Miz) but it doesn't appear to be something that people are going back to see twice.

Oh no sure, let's let the little ones watch traditional Disney fair where, ooh I dunno, SPOILER ALERT Bambi's mother gets shot, Simba's father gets murdered, Cruella DeVil wants to make coats out of family pets? Or maybe the cheery part of Up with the illness and death of the wife? Quasimodo's mother being killed? Such magic and miracles!
Disney has always had a dark side, I don't know why people are suddenly being surprised by Into the Woods when they insist on taking their kids. Children a remarkably capable of understanding if they're given the opportunity, things don't have to be scary these films can be an opportunity to open a line of communication between parent and child to discuss these things, even at a very basic level. Use the Wolf/Little Red story to talk about stranger danger etc.
Maybe we should just squirrel kids away til they're teenagers with Let it Go on repeat in the hope they'll never understand life.

Updated On: 12/27/14 at 02:46 PM

@GiantsInTheSky2 - Bravo to you! Exactly how I feel about it.

"That happy endings aren't real and life sucks? Little kids don't need to know that!"

Yeah, kids don't need to know that until they've been pushed through the educational system and emerge with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and a realization that they're inheriting a world ruined by the generations that came before them!

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Gahhhh. No, I was talking about ITW. Thanks indytallguy. That's what I get for skimming.
::face palm::

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I asked my nieces and nephew ages 8, 11 & 13 which movie they want to see Annie or Into the Woods they all said Annie.

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"Also I'd like to point out that although the movie has a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 71 on Metacritic, for audience ratings, only 63% of people liked it on Rotten Tomatoes and the average audience rating was a 6.7 on Metacritic. Online reviews also tend to skew higher than the general public, so before you go on about how much everybody loves this movie, just look at the facts. People are not as in love with this movie as you want them to be. You can also read some reviews on reddit or Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes and see that some people truly hated this movie."


Yeah, and not to the fault of the movie, but to the audience members who did not do their homework. A lot of the negative audience reactions come from, "I didn't know it was a musical!", or better yet, "this is not appropriate...it should be rated R!!!"

I would also like to point out that with general positivity, the negative ones seem to stick out more and detract from the positivity.

However, the people who did do their homework, and were at least somewhat informed on the story seem to be more pleased.


Audience reactions are still more positive than negative.


Not the film's fault that some people were/are lazy.

"so before you go on about how much everybody loves this movie"

So who exactly is Fantod responding to here? I'm struggling to find anyone in this thread who has made the assertion that everybody loves this movie. I mean, many of us are probably rooting for it to do well in front of a new audience since we're pretty attached to the material - but I doubt anyone here is deluded enough to think that every newcomer to the show is going to fall in love with it. In fact, the thread title itself seems to be an acknowledgement that it's a pretty hard film to market.

So yes - we know that some people won't like this. Some people hate musicals, and some people just don't like Sondheim - and that's just fine. Other people just won't like it because they're expecting one thing and get something else. And I do think it's unfortunate that many families are going to go see this based merely on the fact that it's the "Disney fairy tale" release of the Christmas season, without knowing anything else about what they're getting into.

With all that said, I'm considerably more interested in how those who are already at least somewhat familiar with the material are responding to it - and in that regard, a good majority of the reviews seem to be positive (if not raving.)

Incidentally, based on my Facebook page - as well as reviews on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Reddit, & Fandango - it's also pretty clear that at least SOME newcomers to the show are liking/loving it. So that's always nice to hear.

Updated On: 12/27/14 at 04:34 PM

I just saw it and the movie theater was packed with young children - which I didn't expect honestly. I was also further confused because eventhough the first two trailers were for a Disney/Pixar movie and the Spongebob Squarepants movie, the third trailer was for Selma - a movie made for a much different demographic than the first two movies.

The kids were all paying attention to the first 90 minutes of the movie, but the last half hour was clearly unbearable for some of them to sit through (it was pretty boring for me too)