Less Marvel Content Coming From Disney

Movies

Some of Disney’s biggest brands are going to make themselves scarce in the future. In an interview with CNBC – the same one in which he told the striking actors and writers to stop being selfish and accept their AI replacements – CEO Bob Iger discussed the recent failures of Disney-owned properties like Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. He blames COVID a lot because that’s the party line Hollywood and its media sycophants have agreed on, but he gives some specific plans as well, particularly for Marvel and Star Wars. When asked if the problems with Disney’s output have been due to losing people like Pixar’s John Lasseter, Iger offered a different explanation:

“But I think in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people, in terms of their time and their focus, way beyond where they had been. 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. And I think that is more the cause than anything else.”

His answer to whether Disney would be “pulling back” those brands was more direct:

“Yes. You pull back not just to focus, but it’s also part of our cost containment initiative, spending less on what we make and making less.”

He’s partly right. There is simply way too much content from some of these brands. Certainly, Marvel refuses to give people a chance to miss them. Cutting a lot of their productions is a good idea, and from the sounds of it, the Disney+ shows will be the first to go. That’s fine and dandy, but the deluge of content isn’t the only problem with Marvel; the personnel he’s determined not to blame are part of the problem. She-Hulk, for example, may have suffered from Marvel being spread too thin on a technical level, but the writing was even worse than the awful CGI. Same goes for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Thor: Love and Thunder, and almost everything they’ve done lately. If Iger is not interested in getting better creatives to make these movies, they’re not going to improve.

But this is in line with my impression of the man: he cares about being an ideologue more than maintaining a successful business, and since the board just extended his contract as CEO after a string of massive failures, they seem to agree. He’ll make some small adjustments to try to lessen the damage, or at least appear like he is, through things like lower budgets and fewer stupid TV shows. But don’t bet on a creative overhaul, a lessening of woke lectures, or even a no-brainer like showing Kathleen Kennedy the door; those people are doing what he wants them to do. Iger will continue blowing holes in the ship till it’s completely underwater, then sip Scotch and smoke a cigar on his lifeboat while the little people drown.