Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company is shrinking the MCU with a new mission to drop the number of Marvel TV series to two a year and the film output to no more than three movies per year.
Iger said this is part of Disney’s overall strategy to reduce output and focus on quality, a strategy “that’s particularly true with Marvel.”
“We’re slowly going to decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two, or a maximum of three,” the Disney CEO said during the company’s quarterly earnings call Tuesday. “And we’re working hard on what that path is.”
Iger says Marvel has “a couple of good films in ’25 and then we’re heading to more ‘Avengers,’ which we’re extremely excited about,” adding: “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.”
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The 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 slated for 2026, including the fifth “Avengers” movie. Marvel is releasing a single film in 2024, “Deadpool & Wolverine.” (Historically, the only time Marvel has released more than three movies in a year was in 2021, after the studio sat out 2020 due to the pandemic: “Black Widow,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” “Eternals” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” — the latter of which was a co-production with Sony Pictures.)
On the TV side, Iger says that a portion of the upcoming series, a slate that includes the Kathryn Hahn-led “WandaVision” spinoff “Agatha,” set for release 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 not previously 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 fielded a question about Disney’s focus on sequels and originals, noting that the focus is currently more on franchise films: “We’re gonna balance sequels with originals. Specifically in animation, we had gone through a period where our original films and animation, both Disney and Pixar, were dominating. We’re 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 new movie “Thunderbolts” coming in 2025 alongside sequels “Deadpool & Wolverine” this summer and “Captain America: Brave New World” next year. “It’ll just be a balance, which we think is is right,” Iger said.
