Disney Now Blaming Marvel For All Of Their Movies Sucking
Disney CEO Bob Iger has been finding his name in the headlines this week for everything from extending his tenure at the top of the House of Mouse to condemning the demands of the writers and actors who are now striking but his comments about Disney’s partnership with Marvel should give MCU fans pause. During an interview with CNBC’s David Faber at the Sun Valley Conference (as per Variety), Iger revealed that the studio would be going back to the drawing board when it came to how they’ll handle their output of Marvel projects in the future.
“I think in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve mostly our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people way beyond — in terms of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been. “Marvel’s a great example of that.”
Bob Iger
Following the plummeting box office numbers that not only the MCU has seen but also other offshoots like Pixar, Iger claims that oversaturation is the biggest threat facing the company at this time.
Admitting to a mindset that has followed more quantity over quality, Iger acknowledged that it was Disney’s own fault that box office sales have been plummeting. In his eyes, it was on the studio to churn out better streaming content to ensure that Marvel films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania would be a bigger hit in the cinemas.
While Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 proved to be a real money maker, Quantumania fell far below anyone’s wildest predictions, not even hitting the $500 million mark at the global box office.
The Disney CEO placed the box office blame on the decision to spread itself thin to create plenty of content on both the small and big screen.
“It diluted focus and attention,” Iger said of Disney’s output of Marvel shows on its streaming platform. Noting that the comic book-turned-film-franchise “had not been in the TV business at any significant level,” the Disney CEO placed the box office blame on the decision to spread itself thin to create plenty of content on both the small and big screen.
It has certainly been a rough few months for Disney as the studio continues to fall short of their desired box office expectations with not only Marvel content but also other titles including both the recently released Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and the latest Pixar flick Elemental. For this, Iger believes it comes down to the decisions made during the height of the pandemic that saw the straight-to-streamer release of Soul, Luca, and Turning Red.
While it was an exciting time for those of us at home to have new content to binge (especially after the excitement of Tiger King died down), it put the studio in the unsavory place of needing to pull themselves out of that home streaming hole.
As for Marvel, Iger thinks that they may need to move in a completely new direction and, rather than recycle old characters, bring in fresh faces.
Like Elemental, Disney also faced another flop last summer with the release of Lightyear, which marked the studio’s first step back to exclusive theater play.
While skipping what would have likely been poor box office sales during the pandemic and releasing content immediately to Disney+ was the best choice at the time, there’s no doubt that Iger and the rest of the team are struggling to revamp how they’ll move onward and upward in the future. As for Marvel, Iger thinks that they may need to move in a completely new direction and, rather than recycle old characters, bring in fresh faces.
While the Disney CEO recognizes that Marvel is a hot commodity and certainly one of the number one things to draw fans into theaters and subscribers to Disney+, he knows that there is always a limit to the amount of times a character needs to be focused on.
As Marvel fans will know, the gears are already turning for a new lineup of Avengers to save the world from any villains that threaten to destroy it, meaning that we’ll soon see if Iger’s theory will live up to the test.
