Disney CEO Bob Iger has suggested that Marvel makes too many films and TV shows.
During an interview with CNBC, the studio head admitted that Disney has seen a lot of recent disappointments (perhaps like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's underwhelming box office performance) and puts some blame onto the high volume of content being produced.
“There have been some disappointments,” he said. “We would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better. Marvel’s a great example of that.
"They had not been in the TV business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention. That is, I think, more of the cause than anything.”
Iger returned to the company as CEO late last year after he earlier stepped down from the role. Now, it looks as though he has some ideas about what went wrong. One of the problems, he explained, is Disney’s "zeal" to grow its content to meet the demand of online streaming.
“It’s reflective not as a problem from a personnel perspective, but 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 — where they had been,” he explained.
In terms of Marvel’s creative output, we’ve seen the comic book studio steadily increasing its number of projects over the last decade. In fact, 2022 saw nine new Marvel shows and movies heading to our screens.
However, it’s not just Marvel that has a bit of a content problem – Iger also admitted that Pixar fans have grown accustomed to its movies heading to Disney+.
“There were three Pixar releases in a row that went direct to streaming, mostly because of COVID,” he explained. “I think that may have created an expectation in the audience that they’re going to eventually be on streaming and probably quickly, and there wasn’t an urgency. And then I think there was some, I think you’d have to agree that there were some creative misses, as well.”
Those creative misses are something Iger has clearly been keen to address – laying off Lightyear producers as well as its director as part of recent cost-cutting measures.
Want to read more about Marvel? Check out why Secret Invasion fans are freaking out about the show’s big reveal as well as why Kit Harrington was never going to be in Marvel’s Blade.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
