Disney CEO admits they’ve made too many Marvel shows

Not too long ago, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was the undisputed king of movie franchises. Every new Marvel movie raked it in, and films like Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame represented a shuddering peak; with nearly $3 billion at the box office Endgame is the second highest grossing movie of all time.

Since then, Marvel has hit something of a rough patch. There have still been hits, of course — Spider-Man: No Way Home was a smash success and the most recent Guardians of the Galaxy movie did well — but also some high-profile misses. The latest Ant-Man movie, for example, performed well below expectations, and it was supposed to be a major tentpole for the franchise going forward.

And then there are all those Marvel TV shows on Disney+. Things started off well with WandaVision, which got a lot of buzz. But several series later, is anyone talking much about Secret Invasion? If they are, I haven’t heard them.

Too many Marvel shows have “diluted” the audiences’ attention

Disney CEO Bob Iger is reckoning with these issues. Per Variety, he explained his outlook on an episode of CNBC’s Squawk Box. “There have been some disappointments. We would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better,” he said. “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 — 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. That is, I think, more of the cause than anything."

Yeah, I’d say he’s probably on the money here. When there were one or two Marvel movies coming out a year, people could keep up with them. But now, with Marvel movies continuing to come out and multiple TV series to watch, I don’t think people can be blamed for stepping back. Hopefully Iger takes this to heart and tries to focus more in the future.

Disney CEO finds actors and writers wanting to be compensated “very disturbing”

Of course, the CEO has bigger fish to fry at the moment. Not only are Hollywood writers on strike, they’ve now been joined by actors, all of whom are looking for fair compensation and guarantees that AI won’t take their jobs, among other things.

Naturally, Iger can’t abide that. “It’s very disturbing to me,” he said. “We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we’re facing, the recovery from COVID which is ongoing, it’s not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption. I understand any labor organization’s desire to work on behalf of its members to get the most compensation and be compensated fairly based on the value that they deliver. We managed, as an industry, to negotiate a very good deal with the directors guild that reflects the value that the directors contribute to this great business. We wanted to do the same thing with the writers, and we’d like to do the same thing with the actors. There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

"It will have a very, very damaging affect on the whole business, and unfortunately, there’s huge collateral damage in the industry to people who are supportive services, and I could go on and on. It will affect the economy of different regions, even, because of the sheer size of the business. It’s a shame, it is really a shame."

What Iger doesn’t say is that he and his fellow CEOs could prevent disruption by offering the actors and writers a fair deal. But we should be sympathetic to Iger, too; he only makes $27 million a year. What is he supposed to do, sacrifice some of that to ensure that writers can eat?

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