Earlier this year, word got out that Disney was re-evaluating the number of films and TV shows it releases in a given year, particularly as it relates to new Marvel and Star Wars entries. A few sources even claimed that the studio would enforcing stricter budget guidelines following Bob Iger’s reinstatement as CEO. Now, Iger himself has made it official. During a Morgan Stanley conference held today (via THR), Iger discussed what the future holds for some of Disney’s biggest franchises.
Overall, it sounds like Disney’s mission going forward will involve “reducing the expense per content” without sacrificing quality. In other words, there will be a new focus on “understanding how much volume we need, reducing how much we make. So it’s how much we spend on what we make and how much we make.” In the case of the MCU, this means we could be seeing less films featuring heroes who have already headlined one or two of their own installments.
“What we have to look at at Marvel is not necessarily the volume of Marvel storytelling,” said Iger. “But how many times we go back to the well on certain characters. Sequels typically work well for us, but do you need a third or a fourth, for instance? Or is it time to turn to other characters? There’s nothing in any way inherently off in terms of the Marvel brand. I think we just have to look at what characters and stories we are mining.”
“And if you look at the trajectory of Marvel over the next five years, you’ll see a lot of newness,” continued Iger. “Now, we’re going to turn back to the Avengers franchise, but with a whole set of different Avengers, as an example.”
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Meanwhile, over in a galaxy far, far away, recent reports have indicated that Lucasfilm plans to announce new Star Wars films at this year’s Celebration event, which kicks off in London on April 7. We can officially rule out any more news concerning Kevin Feige’s mystery Star Wars project and Patty Jenkins’ long-in-the-works Rogue Squadron movie, both of which were shelved earlier this week. But Iger confirmed that studio does intend to branch out beyond the Skywalker Saga over the next few years.
“Star Wars, we made three what we called saga films, which is obviously the successors to George Lucas’ first six,” added Iger. “They did very well at the box office — tremendously well as a matter of fact. We’ve made two so-called standalones in Rogue One and Solo. Rogue One did quite well, Solo was a little disappointing to us. It gave us pause just to think maybe the cadence was a little too aggressive. And so we decided to pull back a bit. We still are developing Star Wars films. We’re going to make sure that when we make one, that it’s the right one, so we are being very careful there.”
Do you think Iger has the right idea when it comes to new Marvel and Star Wars films? Let us know in the comment section below!
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