"People Don't Care Now": New Report Details Damage Done To Marvel, STAR WARS, And Pixar By Disney+

"People Don't Care Now": New Report Details Damage Done To Marvel, STAR WARS, And Pixar By Disney+

The launch of Disney+ brought the likes of The Mandalorian and WandaVision into our homes, but several years after the platform launched, the damage done to Disney's biggest brands is undeniable...

By JoshWilding - Aug 04, 2025 11:08 AM EST
Filed Under: Disney
Source: The Wrap

Last month, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige talked candidly about how Disney+ has "devalued" the MCU brand. As he put it, "It was just too much. It was a big company push. And it doesn’t take too much to push us to go. There was a mandate that we were put in the middle of."

Disney wanted more content for its newly launched streaming platform, and Marvel Studios jumped at the chance to finally bring characters like Moon Knight and She-Hulk to our screens. The mandate also allowed Feige to turn the spotlight to supporting players, Loki, the Scarlet Witch, a new Captain America, and more. 

Things started well, but interest has waned in both the studio's movies and TV shows. That's led to fewer ticket sales, and according to The Wrap, a loss of 700,000 subscribers for Disney+ in the first quarter of 2025.

This comes from a piece exploring what Disney's streaming expansion has done to Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar, with one producer with franchise experience telling the trade, "Given the quality of the Marvel Disney+ output has been incredibly mediocre, it’s dragged the entire brand down and diluted its creative. People don’t care now."

Another marketing executive noted, "When you went to a Star Wars movie, it used to be special. But there’s a difference between let’s have a movie every four years versus let’s have three shows on the air all the time and have a movie every year."

Lucasfilm appears to have learned from that, at least, because aside from Ahsoka season 2, there are no other Star Wars TV shows on the way (several movies, starting with The Mandalorian and Grogu, are heading to theaters, though). 

Back to Marvel, and Dave Gonzales, the co-author of MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, shared, "I do think that it has eroded the branding. All of the sub-brands have been eroded. They were finally getting to do what they wanted to do – put everything in development."

"Marvel remade how they made franchise movies but they thought they could do the same thing with television – you can’t," added Gonzales. "They think they’re more nimble than they actually are." He later explained that by making TV shows like movies, series such as WandaVision were costing hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Pixar has suffered most, but even with a handful of live-action Disney movies like Lady and the Tramp and Pinocchio premiering on Disney+, Walt Disney Studios and Disney Animation have remained largely unaffected. Helping matters, of course, is that those brands have not been as heavily pushed on people across Disney+ over the past six years since Disney+ launched. 

Now, it's down to Disney to rehabilitate its biggest brands. As noted, that's already started with Star Wars, while Marvel Studios is attempting to do the same; Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps have faced issues at the box office, but both received positive reviews and the plan from next year is for us to get one or two TV shows a year that are largely unconnected to what's happening in theaters. 

Now, we wait to see if it works or whether Disney's biggest brands have been damaged by streaming beyond repair.

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MisterBones
MisterBones - 8/4/2025, 11:37 AM
Duh. Corporate mandates like this often ruin everything. It turned fans into "students" required to do way too much homework.

They are going to feel this for a while.
ReverseFlasher
ReverseFlasher - 8/4/2025, 12:17 PM
@MisterBones - i agree they are ruining our favorite IP but I also feel disney isnt exactly hurting from this, and we shouldn’t misinterpret that 700,000 subscribers lost — they have 124 million subscribers so thats literally less than one percent lost. And with a subscriber paying 10 per month, theyre making over 14 billion per year. Thats like disney releasing one billion dollar blockbuster movie EVERY MONTH. And oh yeah disney doesnt split the revenue with theaters. So i don’t think this shit is going away anytime soon.
Gabimaru
Gabimaru - 8/4/2025, 12:34 PM
@MisterBones - yet some shills here will still defend these mediocre shows and movies. "I liked it" yeah but the general audience don't. And doesn't care and that hurt the star wars and MCU brand thanks to all your low standards
MaxPaint
MaxPaint - 8/4/2025, 11:39 AM
"When you went to a Star Wars movie, it used to be special. But there’s a difference between let’s have a movie every four years versus let’s have three shows on the air all the time and have a movie every year"


Oh really?
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Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 8/4/2025, 11:39 AM
It's incredible how it took so much time for them to realize something so obvious. I guess with these big companies they only listen when it hits their wallet.
theprophet
theprophet - 8/4/2025, 11:40 AM
Too many pointless projects like Agatha, ironhart and and some movies shouldn't have been made it became too much I remember having 2 3 mcu projects a year was enough and the interest was high.
DocSpock
DocSpock - 8/4/2025, 11:40 AM

It is beyond repair as far as current cost structures work.

They have to figure out how to make high quality movies that only cost a max of about 150 million dollars to produce.

If they can't figure out how, it will be a slow painful death.

the same is true for DC.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 8/4/2025, 1:15 PM
@DocSpock - If I was in charge, I'd end Disney+ and keep Hulu since they own both. Then they could drip feed Disney content onto that platform. It's a double edged sword because parents have Disney+ for the little rascals, but this would be the only way to fix that issue. They'll never do it, but it would work.
marvel72
marvel72 - 8/4/2025, 11:41 AM
A lot of the users on this site have been saying this for years but have been told we're wrong.

Guess what I told you so.
MaxPaint
MaxPaint - 8/4/2025, 11:51 AM
@marvel72 - This. They said it wasn't about quality but it was about complaints from "the toxic fanbase".
YouIknowiamsexy
YouIknowiamsexy - 8/4/2025, 1:14 PM
@marvel72 - Bruh when I said the F4 won't make over $500M WW I was called every name in the book for SIMPLY saying that. You can't say anything remotely negative without some how offending some fanboys. But when it really does bomb, they move the goal post.
F4ntasticClunge
F4ntasticClunge - 8/4/2025, 11:42 AM
Welp you flooded the market with content to the point it no longer feels special.

I stopped watching Marvel and StarWars Disney + shows ages ago.

The last Marvel show on Disney + i watched was that excellent spiderman cartoon and before that it was she hulk (which was a chore to get through)😅
thedrudo
thedrudo - 8/4/2025, 12:45 PM
@F4ntasticClunge - not even just more content, but mediocre to bad content.
F4ntasticClunge
F4ntasticClunge - 8/4/2025, 12:57 PM
@thedrudo - true.
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 8/4/2025, 11:44 AM
Take it Avatar for example. If James Cameron started releasing a new installment every year it wouldn't keep making 2 billion per movie. It would become something normal and not an event.
SATW42
SATW42 - 8/4/2025, 12:09 PM
@Urubrodi - Avatar is still an outlier. It does MASSIVE international. of the 2 billion, 1.5 of it was international.

It's like Ne Zha 2, but Chinese made instead of coming out of the states.

I still don't know an actual person in my life who saw Avatar 2 in theatres.
ReverseFlasher
ReverseFlasher - 8/4/2025, 12:20 PM
@SATW42 - I still think they cooked the books or something. I worked in an office of 250+ ppl and like a month after avatar 2 was released there were still only like two people in my office who’d seen it.
SATW42
SATW42 - 8/4/2025, 12:49 PM
@ReverseFlasher - I used to work with a film nerd who had a website you could go to to see down to the county where people are seeing movies. Avatar 2 seemed to do it's biggest numbers in the US in middle America.

Which I find somewhat interesting because, well what you would associate with Middle America doesn't exactly jive with the rest of the world. But apparently Avatar 2 is the bridge
Android
Android - 8/4/2025, 11:44 AM
I've been saying this since eternals ...glad to see the big boys behind the brand itself are admitting it .
MrSocko
MrSocko - 8/4/2025, 11:45 AM
Going back to non-cosmic storylines like what’s being produced in Spider-Man Brand New Day is going to put Marvel back in the win column
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 8/4/2025, 11:50 AM
@MrSocko - huh?

I don’t think the type of story being told has ever been a or the issue.
SonOfAGif
SonOfAGif - 8/4/2025, 11:58 AM
@MrSocko - Thunderbolts* and Fantastic 4 have done that. While they aren't box office juggernauts, They definitely proved that Marvel is back to quality over quantity. Even the CGI has greatly improved.
JFerguson
JFerguson - 8/4/2025, 11:45 AM
I think Mando S2.5-S3 and Secret invasion were the worst Disney+ offerings from each brand
ReverseFlasher
ReverseFlasher - 8/4/2025, 12:22 PM
@JFerguson - book of boba fett would like a word w you
Gabimaru
Gabimaru - 8/4/2025, 12:36 PM
@JFerguson - ironheart and agatha takes the cake
JacobsLadder
JacobsLadder - 8/4/2025, 12:49 PM
@ReverseFlasher - awful. I couldn't believe what I was watching. The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy was sitting right there, waiting to be made. But no. We got......that.
JFerguson
JFerguson - 8/4/2025, 1:33 PM
@ReverseFlasher - do you mean mando S2.5?
Globaltravel
Globaltravel - 8/4/2025, 11:46 AM
I very much care!! I still watch every single show and movie in theaters!!
Arthorious
Arthorious - 8/4/2025, 11:46 AM
Quality over quantity. I’m just going to be another echo, but they pumped out way too much content, and from what I’ve seen, it’s content that has been pretty bad to me. Out of the D+ series so far, I’ve only liked Loki and Moon Knight and that’s due to Oscar Isaac’s performance. Everything else has been just bland or bad (mostly the latter of the two).
LebaneseSpidey1
LebaneseSpidey1 - 8/4/2025, 11:47 AM
Everything ends. Nothing stays forever so seeing disneys downfall is a bit sad but justified. Especially after their terrible movies and shiity agendas pushed our throats. Ppl are fed up. But till Disney hits a real low or nearing its end there still is time. I mean they make these reboots, sequels and go on and then comes the money they lost💰.
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SonOfAGif
SonOfAGif - 8/4/2025, 12:04 PM
@LebaneseSpidey1 - Disney's downfall? What are you smoking? Disney leads in VOD release each time their movies land. Lilo & Stitch was the first Hollywood movie to reach $1 Billion in 2025. And despite Thunderbolts* and Brave New World not cracking it at the box office, They are still in the top 10 of Box Office records for 2025.
LebaneseSpidey1
LebaneseSpidey1 - 8/4/2025, 12:49 PM
@SonOfAGif - dude cant your read or do i have to tell you as someone who isnt even a native speaker(arab from germany) what i just wrote? 🤦🏽‍♂️
JacobsLadder
JacobsLadder - 8/4/2025, 12:51 PM
@SonOfAGif - come on now. Numbers still matter. L&S can't make up for three flops in six months. Not to mention it barely crawled across $1 billion after a huge opening. Disney is very much experiencing a downfall. There is no question about it.
LebaneseSpidey1
LebaneseSpidey1 - 8/4/2025, 1:24 PM
@JacobsLadder -finally someone gets it.
Very weird that this Pro-Disney Troll doesn’t respond after he is pushing lies.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 8/4/2025, 11:52 AM
Maybe the oversaturation via D+ is part of the problem and it does seem like it could be but I don’t think it’s just one issue but a myriad of ones such as post COVID viewing habits etc.

Maybe it’s just me but moreso for Marvel then SW I guess , the idea of us getting less of them making it special always felt weird since we still got like 2-3 movies every year in the Infinity Saga pretty much so there was already a push happening imo.

I just find it odd why oversaturation is tied to these big franchises then perhaps just genres since you never hear about a deluge of action films or whatever.

I do agree that Marvel making tv shows like movies was the wrong idea since it’s a different medium and I’m glad they are trying to fix that post BA overhaul so hope it works out since I don’t see us seeing the result of that until next year at the least.
ShimmyShimmyYA
ShimmyShimmyYA - 8/4/2025, 1:17 PM
@TheVisionary25 - I think in this case with superhero movies the only on that’s really around is Marvel

DC failed and restarted

Sony failed

Everyone else failed so like marvel basically has the monopoly on the genre
DarthOmega
DarthOmega - 8/4/2025, 11:53 AM
One of the issues aside from quantity over quality is the talent behind the camera. I kept hearing things like "I'm not aware of the source material" or "We are taking it in a different direction" or the dreaded "We are making this for a modern audience".

If the filmmakers don't seem to care but instead want to use beloved characters as an avatar for an ideology, the public will lose interest. I recall several people talking about this years ago. But they were attacked by both sycophants and the studios themselves.
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 8/4/2025, 11:56 AM
@DarthOmega - Preach! Couldn't have said better
DarthOmega
DarthOmega - 8/4/2025, 12:04 PM
@Urubrodi - At the end of the day these movies are enjoyed (or not) for a couple of hours. We discuss it online and move on. They are the ones who have to deal with losses of millions and the fact that they've killed a brand. Yeah it sucks seeing our favorite characters reduced to this.

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But new art is created everyday. And people are already moving on from the past five years of slop.
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 8/4/2025, 12:10 PM
@DarthOmega - Damn... that scene.

Thank God Born Again exists to help me forget this.
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