Marvel's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Has 'Strong' Franchise Potential Assures Disney Chairman
After reassuring Captain America 3 still has a May 2016 release, Bob Iger says he doesn't predict an Avengers-sized success for Guardians; but having seen the space epic, he says it has franchise potential.
Later during the conference, Bob Iger was asked to share his thoughts on Disney's expansive branding technique and whether he's confident that Marvel is at a new higher level right now. "Marvel is, as far as we're concerned, is just getting started," he said. "The results of Captain America, though I think are very, very telling, because when you look at the film that is approaching almost $700 million in global box office, I think $680 million, and you compare that to Captain America 1, which did under $400 million worldwide and even look at it versus Thor movies, a few of the Iron Man movies, you're looking at a film that has actually done substantially better than a lot of the Marvel films that we put out." He contined, "Now, it was a great film, but it's clear that momentum is building for that franchise and with Avengers 2 in production and coming up and characters from Avengers still very much in favor with audiences, I think there is huge potential there. In addition to that, we've got a new film, Guardians of the Galaxy coming out August 1 in the United States this summer, which we've seen, I mentioned in my comments. We feel quite good about that too. That's a whole other Marvel realm or universe in terms of where it takes place, the characters that populate it and the stories that you can tell for those characters. So, I think, I'm not going to predict that we've got another Avengers on our hands, but that's certainly the goal." What do you think?