Disney CEO: Recent Marvel output not “up to the standards that we set for ourselves”

Marvel is in a pickle, and it’s a spicy one. The studio is weathering a run of underperforming movies and TV shows. On Disney+, series like Secret Invasion have been shrugged off by fans who used to live for this stuff. And on the big screen, movies like Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underperformed at the box office, while new release The Marvels looks like it’s going to straight-up bomb.

How did Marvel Studios, once the most reliably profitable outlet in Hollywood, come to this? Theories abound. Maybe it’s that the studio put out too much content too quickly (it’s definitely that one). Maybe it’s that Jonathan Majors, the next mondo-sized villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is beset by personal scandals. Maybe it’s a lot of things.

At least folk like Disney CEO Bob Iger are acknowledging that something needs to change. “[A]t the time the pandemic hit, we were leaning into a huge increase in how much we were making and I’ve always felt that quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality,” he said on a recent earnings call, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “And I think that’s exactly what happened. We lost some focus.”

That may be a swipe at Bob Chapek, who took over for Iger as CEO between 2020 and 2022. Now, Iger wants to focus on quality over quantity. “We’re all rolling up our sleeves, including myself, to do just that,” he said. “We have obviously great assets, great stories to tell from the assets that we either have or that we purchased. And I feel really optimistic about the slate going forward, which is going to be a balance between some really strong sequels to some very, very popular titles, as well as some good original content, starting with Wish, which comes out Thanksgiving weekend. So I feel good about the direction we’re headed. But I’m mindful of the fact that our performance from a quality perspective wasn’t really up to the standards that we set for ourselves.”

Director leaves Avengers: The Kang Dynasty as Marvel continues to pivot

So Marvel’s plans are going to change. One way they might do that is to pivot away from a cross-content story involving Kang the Conqueror, the villain played by Jonathan Majors. Right now, he factors into two big Avengers movies coming down the pike: The Kang Dynasty on May 1, 2026 and Secret Wars on May 7, 2027. The plan was for those movies to cap off Phase 6 of the MCU.

And they may still, but Marvel is shifting things behind the scenes. For instance, Deadline reports that Destin Daniel Cretton will no longer be directing Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Instead, he’ll focus on the Marvel projects he was already working on, including the sequel to his movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings as well as Wonder Man, a new Disney+ show that will air under the new Marvel Spotlight series banner, meaning that it won’t be tied inextricably to the rest of the MCU.

Does this mean that Marvel Studios is pitching The Kang Dynasty altogether or just retooling things? At this point we’re not sure; all we know is that change is in the air.

Stephen King blasts bandwagoning Marvel haters

But change will take a while to set in. In the meantime, fans are taking in The Marvels, which fans seem to think is a decent popcorn movie, even if enthusiasm for all things Marvel isn’t what it used to be.

And of course, there’s a contingent of toxic fans who are gleefully wringing their hands over a Marvel movie failing, particularly one written by, directed by and starring women. None other than Stephen King, the author of every other horror book ever written, called that group to task on Twitter. “I don’t go to MCU movies, don’t care for them, but I find this barely masked gloating over the low box office for ‘The Marvels’ very unpleasant,” King wrote. “Why gloat over failure?” And in another tweet: “Some of the rejection of ‘The Marvels’ may be adolescent fanboy hate. You know, ‘Yuck! GIRLS!’”

It’s interesting how a change in position can change your outlook. A couple of years ago, when Marvel seemed to making wrong move after wrong move, I was critiquing the studio pretty regularly. But now that their mistakes have caught up to them and they seem to want to change for the better, I hope they can. Who doesn’t like a comeback arc?

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