• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

Hollywood’s Gen Z Gap Is Real… and It’s Growing

In a complementary study to my annual survey of L.A. teens, it turns out that young people across America have pretty specific—and not all that shocking or unfair—gripes with the movie business.

toy story 5
Amid total content saturation, established I.P. remains the primary draw to theaters, with the highest anticipation this summer for Toy Story 5 and Minions & Monsters. Photo: Courtesy of Disney/Pixar
Matthew Belloni
May 26, 2026

Join Puck to listen to this article

I think Kevin Goetz is a little annoyed with me. The founder and C.E.O. of Screen Engine, the research firm that conducts scientific studies and test screenings for movie studios, probably doesn’t love the decidedly unscientific focus group interviews about moviegoing habits that I’ve been conducting annually with high-school kids for a few years now. After all, Goetz collects detailed survey data from nationwide samplings of demographically representative respondents. I call up a buddy, who gets his daughter to let me chat with her and five friends from the same high school on the Westside of L.A. Not the same.