A ticketing company found men most want to see The Avengers and women, Snow White and the Huntsman. Does this sum up your choice?
If there's one thing everyone enjoys, it's being told what to like. If there's another, it's being told what to like along strict gender lines. So brace yourself for a giddy one-two of excitement: boys, the film you're most looking forward to this summer is The Avengers; and, girls, there's nothing you want to see more than Snow White and the Huntsman. Don't pretend otherwise. You can't argue with facts.
This is all according to a survey by ticketing company Fandango. Thousands of users took part in its recent Most Anticipated Summer Movie poll, and the results are as clear as day. The Avengers took the most votes overall, making it the must-see blockbuster of the year.
That actually doesn't sound too unlikely. In reality, hype for The Avengers has been growing since the first Iron Man film four years ago, and the added bonus of seeing film heroes like The Hulk, Captain America and that man who sort of waggled a bow and arrow around for about three seconds in Thor together has ramped up expectations even further. On top of that, advance word for the film is spectacular, with Cineworld calling it "The best superhero movie ever made" in a tweet this week. If you can't trust Cineworld, who can you trust?
This is bound to come as a blow to The Dark Knight Rises which, after the phenomenal success of its predecessor, must have expected to top all lists like this. But in reality, it's only the second-most anticipated film among men, and the fourth among women. They'd rather watch Men in Black 3 – perhaps the most rote-looking sequel in recent history – than The Dark Knight Rises. Maybe it's because they think they've already seen most of the film in the form of fan footage. Maybe it's because they saw the preview ahead of Mission: Impossible IV and still can't decipher anything that Tom Hardy said in it. Maybe it's because the thought of spending another two and a half hours desperately wishing that Christian Bale would just eat a bloody lozenge is too much to bear. We'll have to wait and see.
This isn't the only gender divide in the Fandango survey. It quite clearly points out that girls like fairy tales (Snow White and the Huntsman is ranked number one for them) while boys like punching (The Bourne Legacy ranked number three for them). Girls like lovely Johnny Depp (Dark Shadows was their fifth choice) while boys like scary space aliens (Prometheus was their fifth choice). Hopefully Hollywood will pay attention to this information and start making films that are even more aggressively targeted to barely existent stereotypes in the future. It seems to work.
If there's one winner of all this, it's Chris Hemsworth, who manages to unite men and women by starring in two highly-ranked films this summer. First he'll star in The Avengers as Thor, and then – if its trailer is anything to go by – he'll star in Snow White and the Huntsman as Thor. Big things will happen to him this year, as they will to Charlize Theron, the nearest female equivalent to Hemsworth, who plays gunk-covered evil queen types in both Snow White and Prometheus this summer.
So that's that. Forget all other forms of commercial tracking, because the Fandango community has spoken. People want to see The Avengers and Snow White and Batman. That's bad news for the likes of Brave, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dictator, which don't even get a look in. Nor does Katy Perry's upcoming concert documentary. Poor Katy Perry. Always the bridesmaid.
Does this survey reflect the films that you'd like to see this summer?
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