The heyday of Marvel seems to be coming to an actual end after years of people claiming that superhero fatigue was going to occur any moment now. Bob Iger, Disney CEO and chief cost cutter, said today that the company was going to be pulling back on both its Marvel and Star Wars production efforts as part of its massive cost-cutting efforts announced earlier in the year. This means fewer Marvel TV shows and movies and fewer Star Wars shows on Disney+.
Iger claims this move comes after an onslaught of content was released for both franchises as Disney launched Disney+ and tried to lure subscribers in with franchise content they couldn’t get anywhere else. The result was a series of hit shows from The Mandalorian to Moon Knight but also, accorded to Iger, a dilution of the brands where there was just too much for audiences to track — and thus a waning interest.
“You pull back not just to focus, but also as part of our cost containment initiative. Spending less on what we make, and making less,” said Iger, then pointing to Marvel as a perfect example of why they’re doing this. “Marvel is a great example of that. It had not been in the television business at any significant level, and not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of TV series. Frankly, it diluted focus and attention.”
While the removal of TV shows and films from Disney+ to save money has put Iger squarely in the crosshairs of internet anger, he’s not exactly wrong here. Marvel’s box office returns on films have been shrinking, with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underperforming dramatically, and the Disney+ shows have been garnering fewer and fewer eyes as well, with Secret Invasion reportedly floundering for viewers. A pullback and refocus for the cinematic behemoth could help bring people back in while ensuring the studio makes movies people want to see like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which was a big global hit.
Star Wars, on the other hand, is a bit of a surprise as Lucasfilm hasn’t really been kicking out content all that quickly. While there are a host of new shows in the works for Disney+, there aren’t that many ongoing series for the franchise. More to the point, there hasn’t been a Star Wars film released since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, and Lucasfilm has had a slew of high-profile movie cancellations since then. Hard to pull back on content when you’re producing zero content, but this may just mean that there will be fewer Disney+ shows in the works and that those that are set to debut will have a harder time getting a second season.
As a final note, Iger also mentioned that you might be seeing Marvel and Star Wars stuff on other platforms as they look at licensing. As these companies realize they aren’t actually able to justify the spending on subscription-based streaming platforms, selling their content is looking better and better.
