Disney CEO promises “a lot of newness” to come in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Is the Marvel Cinematic Universe in trouble? After a string of movies that — while not bad — didn’t scale the heights of Marvel hits before it (e.g. Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder), more and more people are asking that question.

And then came Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which introduces a huge new villain for the franchise. It’s currently sitting at a dismal 47% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes (to be fair, the audience score is much better at 83%). And what’s far more concerning for Disney is that it’s underperforming at the box office; Quantumania is a foundational movie for the next phase of the MCU, but it’s on track to take in less money than either of the previous two Ant-Man films.

So is the MCU in trouble? Returning Disney CEO Bob Iger sounded off about it at Morgan Stanley’s 2023 Technology Media and Telecom Conference. “Marvel — there were 7,000 characters, there are a lot more stories to tell,” he said, per Indiewire. “What we have to look at at Marvel is not necessarily the volume of Marvel storytelling, but how many times we go back to the well on certain characters. Sequels typically work well for us. Do you need a third or a fourth, 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 or stories we’re mining. And if you look at the trajectory of Marvel over the next five years, you’re going to see a lot of newness. We’re going to turn back to the Avengers franchise, but with a whole set of different Avengers."

Iger mulling whether they needed “a third or a fourth” film sounds like him throwing some light shade at Ant-Man, who was never one of the top tier Avengers.

Although I think that misses the point. When Marvel was at its peak, it could pack people into theaters even to watch heroes who weren’t previously well-known; just look how well the Guardians of the Galaxy movies have performed. And like I said, the previous two Ant-Man movies made more money than Quantumania even though Quantumania is being sold as more of an event. Honestly, I think the days of the MCU being the undisputed king of superhero cinema might be over. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it will require an adjustment on Disney’s part.

Jonathan Majors brushes off middling Ant-Man 3 reviews

One person who isn’t ruffled about Ant-Man 3’s so-so reviews is Jonathan Majors, who plays that major villain I mentioned: Kang. “It doesn’t change how I see myself, period. It’s all data,” Majors said on the Screen Talk podcast. “I’m a performance within a story.”

"[Critics are] just people. They have an opinion. You always have an opinion. I’m no fool. I know these are people writing it. These aren’t my Yale professors or my drama teachers. These are people who have kids and they have a perspective, they have a religious upbringing or a lack thereof. They live in this town, or they want to be seen in this way or don’t want to be seen in this way. I look at the aggregate and, ok, 47. But what does that 47 mean when you also got this amount of box office? What do these things mean? It’s information. I am in the know. I won’t play myself. If you are a critic on a level, I probably know you and understand your politics."

Clearly Majors has a great attitude about all of this. Although I wonder if it helped that, even when critics were criticizing the movie, they usually only had kind words to say about Majors’ performance as Kang.

Disney wants to be “really careful” with Star Wars

Let’s move on from Disney’s Marvel problem to talk about its Star Wars problem. Disney and Lucasfilm have been gun-shy about making another Star Wars movie for a while, ever since the sequel trilogy divided the fanbase. And according to Iger, the concerns go back further than that.

“Solo was a little disappointing to us,” Iger said. “It gave us pause just to think maybe the cadence was a little too aggressive. 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, and so we’re being really careful there.”

Marvel and Star Wars are Disney’s two biggest franchises, and both are in something of a transitional period. What will they look like on the other side? Stay tuned.

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