Despite featuring a raft of films that look geared towards all-American fratboys, a new study has found that the most frequent cinema-going demographic in America is actually Hispanic women over the age of 25.

A market research team commissioned by Hollywood trade paper the Wrap polled 1,500 frequent moviegoers on what films they'd recently seen, and even in boisterous, seemingly masculine titles like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it was Hispanic women who made up the biggest audience percentage.

With a couple of exceptions, like The Fault in Our Stars' biggest demographic being non-Hispanic women, and Bad Neighbors proving most popular amongst non-Hispanic men, Hispanic audiences constantly reported visiting the cinema more often than their counterparts. The fact that many Hispanics are also Christians means that recent faith-based films like Noah have performed well.

This all could be food for thought for Hollywood execs, who rarely tailor their movies to this audience in the way they currently court Asian markets – for example with the latest Transformers movie, which features Chinese cars, extras and locations.

One brand consultant interviewed by the Wrap about the findings suggests that Hispanic audiences are attracted to superhero films because, being American citizens with Hispanic roots, they empathise with the central characters' dual identities. "That bi-cultural identity is the basis for the cultural resonance of superheroes," TruthCo's Kate Perkins said, suggesting that they share a "foregrounding and backgrounding of two identities that are equally important."

The study follows another by the Motion Picture Association of America that found that 25 percent of US cinema tickets sold in 2013 have been to Hispanics, despite them making up just 17 percent of the population.