Credit: Marvel StudiosAfter some box office trouble, Disney is looking toward young men to save the day.
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The Walt Disney Company is looking to switch its focus toward young men. According to multiple insider sources via Variety, Disney is mandating content geared toward young men and teens between the ages of 13 and 28, aka Gen Z.
This comes as Disney struggles to maintain its box office dominance, with original animated films like Strange World (2022) and Elio (2025), as well as Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World (2025), performing well below expectations.
Sources say that The Walt Disney Company seeks new intellectual property (IP) involving content more traditionally appealing to boys and young men.
Sure, Disney managed to squeeze out another billion-dollar release with this year’s Lilo & Stitch, but the company’s Marvel and Star Wars powerhouses simply aren’t as powerful as they used to be.
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Former Searchlight Pictures co-head David Greenbaum is leading this charge on Gen Z men. Last year, Greenbaum was brought in to Disney to help run the company’s live-action film division. Greenbaum is working alongside Daria Cercek, former Paramount Pictures co-chief, to tailor content toward young male audiences.
Disney’s major honeypot for a long time has been millennials. This age range has the most money to spend and makes up a considerable chunk of the company’s consumer base, both in terms of entertainment and Disney’s theme parks.
When looking at recent, more male-friendly releases like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), it’s clear that young men either don’t care or don’t know what’s going on in the Disney sphere.
Disney wants to cater to its younger male audience, but the company seems unsure how.
“Superhero fatigue” seems like a very real and present threat toward the genre as a whole, with Disney’s three 2025 MCU releases, as well as DC’s Superman, performing somewhere between “poor” and “adequate.”
Disney still has its Star Wars brand to fall back on, though it’s been multiple years since the last feature film hit theaters. Disney will release The Mandalorian and Grogu in 2026, a test to see how much audiences still care about the Star Wars brand.
One film executive says every studio should be looking for originals.
“I never thought I’d say it,” the exec said about Disney’s boy troubles, “but it looks like Disney is going to have to start trying.”
The next few years will undoubtedly be incredibly important for The Walt Disney Company. Disney is set to invest billions into its theme parks over the next decade, with large-scale projects planned for iconic places like Magic Kingdom and Disney’s original Disneyland Park.
Disney will also be selecting its next leader soon. Longtime CEO Bob Iger will officially step down from his post (for the last time) sometime next year, at which point Disney will announce his successor.
Iger was replaced in 2020 for what was assumed to be his permanent retirement. Iger handed the keys to the kingdom over to Bob Chapek, another longtime executive. However, Chapek’s time at Disney would not last long, with the board voting to axe him and bring back Iger just a few years later for a brief stint while the company looked for a different successor.
The frontrunners for the role include Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, and Disney Parks and Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro.
Stay tuned here at Inside the Magic for all Disney news and updates.