Disney CEO Is Worried About The Future Of The MCU
Disney CEO Bob Iger wants to stop having so many MCU films about the same characters, axes opportunities for trequels and quadrilogies in the future.
It will come as a shock to no one who has been following the entertainment industry that tightening budgets is currently the name of the game. With competitors like Warner Bros. Discovery finding ways to pinch their pennies and save on production costs, Disney is making moves to do the same as, according to The Hollywood Reporter, CEO Bob Iger will be making big decisions in the upcoming days on what stays and what goes. And, while its sprawling catalog of content has brought in millions of dollars for Disney, Iger revealed that there may be some changes coming for the MCU and how many projects they choose to move forward with in the future.
Iger’s comments came at a Morgan Stanley conference when, along with other major franchises like Star Wars, the MCU was brought up. While the CEO acknowledged that those superhero productions were a big money maker for the company, he wants to be careful with “how many times we go back to the well on certain characters.” Staying on this point, Iger said that while a sequel is all fine and good, there may not be a need in the future for the studio to give the same character a “third or a fourth” film.
But, don’t get the wrong idea. Iger isn’t planning on making cuts to the MCU as a whole, with many titles of the next phases already set in stone, the CEO was simply saying that it’s time to “turn to other characters,” something that’s already beginning to take form in the new wave of Marvel productions. While we’re receiving a Deadpool 3, there’s also a slew of new titles and characters coming out, like Blade and Fantastic Four, which will focus on names that we haven’t seen in Kevin Feige’s MCU before.
Building on this point and assuaging the panic of Marvel fans, Iger says that there will be “a lot of newness” in the upcoming years with the Avengers returning, “but with a whole set of different Avengers.” As we’ve already seen via series and film setups, a new generation of heroes is on the way, with Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson dropping Falcon and picking up the shield of Captain America and Xochitl Gomez’s America Chavez expected to continue her adventures post Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And that’s just the start of it as series like Hawkeye and the upcoming Ironheart all tease the new generation of MCU heroes.
Iger’s comments also mean that there’s a good chance that these new-to-the-fold youngsters won’t be receiving the same amount of screentime as Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, or even Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man. While sequels and threequels have worked for the MCU over the last decade, the Disney CEO is making it clear that changes are coming that will – in his eyes – go forward with a quality over quantity mindset.
Luckily for fans of Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy, the third installments of those franchises made it just in time before Disney and Iger announced their plans to put a hold on and possibly ax the chance for so many follow-ups. While MCU fans look to the future of the comic books-turned-on-screen franchise, although standalone characters may not be receiving multiple tellings, there are still plenty of titles to look forward to.
