Photo Credit: Disney
How would you feel if marvel studios released only three movies and two shows per year?Well it just did.During Disney's quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Bob Iger announced a new strategy for Marvel to reduce output and focus on quality. Iger stated that the MCU will be shrinking, with a new mission to drop the number of Marvel TV series to two per year and the film output to no more than three movies per year.
Iger explained that this new strategy for Marvel is part of the company's overall plan to decrease volume and concentrate on producing high-quality content. According to Iger, this strategy is "particularly true with Marvel." He added that the company is "working hard on what that path is."
Iger also revealed that Marvel has "a couple of good films in '25 and then we're heading to more 'Avengers,' which we're extremely excited about." He further added, "Overall, I feel great about the slate. It's something that I've committed to spending more and more time on. The team is one that I have tremendous confidence in and the IP that we're mining, including all the sequels that we're doing, is second to none."
However, this announcement is at odds with the most recent release calendar distributed by Disney, which has four films from Marvel Studios slated for 2025 - "Captain America: Brave New World," "Thunderbolts," "The Fantastic Four," and "Blade" - and four more Marvel movies scheduled for 2026, including the fifth "Avengers" movie.
On the TV side, Iger noted that a portion of the upcoming series, including the Kathryn Hahn-led "WandaVision" spinoff "Agatha," are "a vestige of basically a desire in the past to increase volume." While Iger has previously stated plans to reduce Marvel franchise output, he's never been this direct in terms of exactly how many titles Disney plans to release for both TV and film each year.
Later in the call, Iger was asked about Disney's focus on sequels and originals, and he noted that the focus is currently more on franchise films. He explained that they plan to balance sequels with originals, and specifically in animation, they had gone through a period where their original films and animation, both Disney and Pixar, were dominating. However, they are now swinging back a bit to lean on sequels.
Iger cited Disney's plans for the next "Toy Story" movie and this summer's release of "Inside Out 2" and said these films have an increased value because known IP costs less to market. For Marvel, Iger pointed to the new movie "Thunderbolts" coming in 2025 alongside sequels "Deadpool & Wolverine" this summer and "Captain America: Brave New World" next year. He concluded by stating that "it'll just be a balance, which we think is right."
