Disney CEO Bob Iger Discusses Marvel Fatigue And Quietly Cancelling Several Projects

Disney CEO Bob Iger Discusses Marvel Fatigue And Quietly Cancelling Several Projects

At a recent tech conference, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that he's quietly canceled several projects and stated that superhero fatigue was not the reason for Marvel's disappointing 2023 film slate.

By MarkJulian - Mar 06, 2024 08:03 AM EST
Filed Under: Marvel Studios
Source: via THR

Recently, Disney CEO Bog Iger was a keynote speaker at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco.

The event took place yesterday and Iger made several interesting comments regarding the company's film output and how Disney will right the ship after a somewhat down 2023 that saw the company miss its usual box office benchmarks.

Fans of the MCU and Star Wars took particular notice of Iger's statement that the company had decided to shelve projects that they believed weren't going to work out, even if pre-production expenses had already been incurred.

"You have to kill things you no longer believe in, and that’s not easy in this business, because either you’ve gotten started, you have some sunk costs, or it’s a relationship with either your employees or with the creative community,” said Iger.

He continued, “It’s not an easy thing, but you got to make those tough calls. We’ve actually made those tough calls. We’ve not been that public about it, but we’ve killed a few projects already that we just didn’t feel were strong enough.”

In the Marvel and Star Wars fandoms, this comment is receiving a lot of interest because several previously revealed projects have remained inactive for an extended amount of time and currently lack a release date. Have these projects been "quietly killed" or simply pushed further down the slate, into Phase 6 or beyond?

On the Disney+ side of Marvel, Ironheart, Wonder Man, Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man all lack release dates, and there's been virtually no update on Vision Quest for quite some time. Likewise, a Nova project for Disney+ was announced back in 2022 and has puzzlingly received no updates.

Regarding the MCU's film slate, production has not yet begun on Shang-Chi 2 or Armor Wars, and neither project has a set release date.

On the Star Wars side, Taika Waititi's Untitled Star Wars Movie and Shawn Levy's Untitled Star Wars Movie both lack clear direction and release dates. Ans Star Wars films from Patty Jenkins and Kevin Feige certainly fall into the "quietly canceled" department as well.

Iger went on to add that he's been giving extra attention to the company's film division as he's been personally, “spending a lot of time with the creators, watching these films, giving detailed notes in these films, engaging in a respectful process that results in improvement.” Iger's remark has some fans believing he is stepping on the toes of Kevin Feige and Dave Filoni in an attempt to return to the days of Disney having billion-dollar box office hit after box office hit.

As Iger moved along in his speech, he railed against the notion that superhero fatigue may be the cause of Marvel's dismal output, post-Avengers: Endgame.

A lot of people think it’s audience fatigue, it’s not audience fatigue. They want great films. And if you build it great, they will come and there are countless examples of that. Some are ours and some are others’. Oppenheimer is a perfect example of that. Just a fantastic film,” Iger said. 

He continued, "Focus is really important. We reduced the output of Marvel, both number of films they make and the number of TV shows, and that really becomes critical, but I feel good about the team. I feel good about the IP we’re making. I talked about a lot of the projects. We look years ahead, really. And it’s iterative."

Not only do you look at the films you’re making, you look at every part of that process, who the directors are, who’s being cast, reading scripts, I personally watch films three to five times with the team and just create a culture of excellence and respect, which is really important with the creative community. And again, the track record speaks for itself.

Iger went on to specifically point to Deadpool & Wolverine as a sign that things are turning a corner for Marvel, adding that the Ryan Reynolds-led pic “will be one of the more successful Marvel movies we’ve had in a long time."

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Order66
Order66 - 3/6/2024, 9:01 AM
It’s not output. It’s quality. You could have all that stuff and if the quality is good nobody will care that a lot has come out.
MotherGooseUPus
MotherGooseUPus - 3/6/2024, 9:25 AM
@Order66 - BINGO. Get good quality writers and directors and see what happens to your profit. Stop making stupid decisions when it comes to writing and people will go see the movies.
Order66
Order66 - 3/6/2024, 9:36 AM
@MotherGooseUPus - yup exactly. Give me all the MCU content I can get my hands on as long as the quality is good.
ptick
ptick - 3/6/2024, 9:40 AM
@Order66 - Yes and no. Obviously quality helps and overextending people can hurt quality. But there's more to it than that.

Scarcity matters as well and the movies should feel like EVENTS. The tv shows should feel like tv shows, not movies. They should be connected to the larger world but they shouldn't necessarily ever feel as important as the movies. Otherwise, the movies no longer feel like events that people have to go to the theater to see.

I loved the Ms. Marvel show but I do think it was a mistake to introduce her on D+ if they wanted her to be a major MCU player (same with Kate Bishop). Rather her be introduced in a movie as a secondary or tertiary character then become more fleshed out in a show. (Sort of like what they had set out to do with Ironheart, but soooo much time has passed between her WF appearance and when (if?) the show comes out, she'll have been forgotten.) Or keep the shows focused on more grounded stuff - which should be less expensive and also feels more tv show friendly and smaller in scale. Those grounded characters can pop into movies as well, I suppose, but the bread and butter for those characters should be on the tv side.
Arthorious
Arthorious - 3/6/2024, 9:53 AM
@Order66 - agreed, if I recall, back in 2008 we just had one Marvel movie a year, then from 2010 or 2011 we had more a year but they were good.
Polaris
Polaris - 3/6/2024, 10:04 AM
@Order66 - I think it's both. Obviously quality is the more important factor, but when you have a lot of something, it feels less special, less of a must see. Plus, for many people keeping up with a constant output of shows and films it's hard. There's only so much time to watch stuff, so if things start to pile up or you can't keep count of all the projects, it can be overwhelming.
Goldboink
Goldboink - 3/6/2024, 10:25 AM
@Order66 -
That's the challenge. Trying to pump out 2 or 3 films a year along with all the D+ is just too much. Looking at this list, Ironheart, Wonder Man, Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies, Vision Quest, and Nova that's a lot of CGI and a lot of talent to create 5 or 6 episodes, even for the animation. It's way too much. Based on the dribs and drabs we get the D+ will be the street level stuff that worked really well on Netflix for the most part and leave the other stuff to the big screen. Furthermore the shows mentioned are not big names, they are reaches almost entirely. Nobody wants IronHeart. Nobody. Same with WonderMan. In thier hubris after finding success with GoTG, a back bench group, they assumed that they could do that with any obsucre property but that only works with all the creative talent focused on it.

This is a good thing. Give me a little bit if a rest and then a movie every 9 or 10 months or so and some regularly released stuff on D+ that is destination TV. The first few years of AOS were like that and it can work.

Make Mine Marvel Again!
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 3/6/2024, 10:34 AM
@Goldboink - I’m so tired of people being like nobody wants this or that

Nobody wanted Star Wars Either or The Godfather…

Not saying those will of course be of the same quality but just because something seems unnecessary in your eyes doesn’t mean it still can’t turn out to be good

That’s not how stories are made and shouldn’t be either.
tylerzero
tylerzero - 3/6/2024, 10:35 AM
@MotherGooseUPus -

This is how I heard it:

MotherGooseUPus
MotherGooseUPus - 3/6/2024, 10:46 AM
@tylerzero - LOL. I was looking for that gif but couldnt find it. Thank you sir
SalemCat
SalemCat - 3/6/2024, 10:48 AM
@Order66 -


Yeah. They used to hire people who have genuine passion for these MCU projects and have done for years. They keep hiring these people with little experience 'writers' to just activists. Worst of all they refuse to do the research in the characters and stories.


Meanwhile the usual nasty suspects on this Comic Book Movies site in the comment sections always continue to post their sad little clown emojis and bully those who have completely different views and opinions to theirs... such as fan castings or to those opinions on how terrible the majority of the MCU projects have been in the past few years: all because of shilling is "so choice" for them. Those so-called "fans" can get stuffed and kick rocks. The very fact there are stores stocked with countless unsold Eternals, America Chavez, Shuri, and Captain Marvel dolls/action figures etc on toy shelves and other merch... is evidence. Every time go into a toy store you see all of these unpurchased stuff just sitting there collecting dust for months to years. I am not even joking... plenty fellow fans on Youtube and the toy collector community forums have shown videos and images as proof.


Totally glad more and more people are aware how unpopular the Marvel television shows and movies been declining in quality. Disney / Marvel Studios need to hire people who actually care for the comic books. And people wonder why manga are way more popular than American comic books?!?


How difficult is it? Just give what the fans want. The first season of the live action One Piece show from last year is great and well loved for a reason...




Scarilian
Scarilian - 3/6/2024, 11:29 AM
Everyone wants this to be one singular issue, but it's an insane amount of issues compounding together.

Even if you made the most amazing film possible that everyone loved, it won't change that you've made several years of utter garbage that your cinematic universe is not only connected to, but reliant upon in terms of characters and plot.
Goldboink
Goldboink - 3/6/2024, 11:34 AM
@TheVisionary25 -
With all due respect to all concerned, none of the projects I mentioned are likely to be SW or Godfather. Resources are limited and executives have to make decisions based on what they think audiences want to see, being a capitalist endeavor and all. Maybe I was inelegant in my phrasing. Maybe saying that IronHeart and VisionQuest did not have the ability to recoup a $100 Million budget on D+, which is what we are really talking about here.

You do have a point though related to the genre. Nobody wanted to see GoTG and they nailed it.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 3/6/2024, 12:17 PM
@Goldboink - that’s fair , we’ll see
KennKathleen
KennKathleen - 3/6/2024, 12:26 PM
@ptick - look. I went years spending $70-120 a week buying comics on Wednesdays. I read everything from Batman, Spawn, Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men, Daredevil, Cap, Superman, Ms. Marvel, Green Lantern etc.

I never thought- "this is too damn much!"

I'll tell ya the real problem:

", I personally watch films three to five times with the team and just create a culture of excellence and respect, which is really important with the creative community."

You created excellence and respect 🤔🤨?

For what/whom?
You muddasukas got it right for 10+ years! Then- you decided that the best thing you could do is completely overthrow the formula???

Make it make sense. Put out as much material as possible- but you better make sure it is a good STORY. The rest is icing...
Goldboink
Goldboink - 3/6/2024, 12:36 PM
@KennKathleen - A publisher can make money on a distribution of 100K copies and in many instances on a 50K run. Each one of those books cost you a few dollars and you own them forever. Movies are a different story. TV and Movies have a much higher budget and a much higher bar to make money. They need to make better decisions with their limited resources.
Goldboink
Goldboink - 3/6/2024, 12:37 PM
@Order66 - If it costs $85Mil to produce a D+ show how do they recoup that money and turn a profit?
KennKathleen
KennKathleen - 3/6/2024, 4:30 PM
@Goldboink - I agree- but the same rules apply.

Get the story right. Get the cinematography right. Get the audio right. Make it worth the anticipation.

Could you imagine a Captain America story centered around the 4th of July? You could remake A Man Out of Time, and place patroitc themes pointing to the actual good created from the country's past and present.
Heck, "Itsjustsomerandomguy" did a great Captain America story years ago- with action figures!!!


?si=-OfSk6WPKBXKw8nX
RedFury
RedFury - 3/6/2024, 9:01 AM
Truly it's hard to believe anything that a CEO of a company says to the public. But here's hoping his talk of focus, and quality are actual truths of the situation, and that he's not just gutting good creativity for the sake of numbers.
marvel72
marvel72 - 3/6/2024, 9:06 AM
It is fatigue but won't admit it,not another Marvel movie, that's people feel and when you can miss one you can miss more.

How was cancelling Ironheart a tough decision,shouldn't have made it in the first place.
WhateverItTakes
WhateverItTakes - 3/6/2024, 9:08 AM
If it ain't broke don't fix it.......but you tried to fix it
Forthas
Forthas - 3/6/2024, 9:10 AM
Rian Johnson???
bobevanz
bobevanz - 3/6/2024, 9:11 AM
Hahahahahahaha they haven't learned a damn thing. Maybe you clowns should lose a couple more billion before realizing. A suit is always a dumb suit
bobevanz
bobevanz - 3/6/2024, 9:13 AM
My only hope is the hire top notch writers and directors, but they don't want to become another cog in the machine. Perfect example: Edgar Wright, that was the smoking gun for me. They never budge on their stupid ass vision, they resort to hiring tv writers and directors because nobody wants to [frick] with them!
EgoEgor
EgoEgor - 3/6/2024, 9:20 AM
@bobevanz - I agree 100%. Just like Tarantino said, directing/writing a marvel movie, unless you got clout or didn't came before phase 3, is a gig job. I don't see visions because everything looks and feels the same.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 3/6/2024, 9:37 AM
@EgoEgor - they can afford to hire a "nolan" but how come those kind of directors never ever ever want to go to Marvel? The writing is on the wall, not the paper lol
jst5
jst5 - 3/6/2024, 10:38 AM
@bobevanz - Case and point...the new Rey movie.
RedFury
RedFury - 3/6/2024, 12:17 PM
@bobevanz - My main worry about hiring a huge name Director would be that a lot of them don't want to adhere to storyline and plots that make sense within the comic book arcs. So the bigger the name, the more freedom they'll likely want to make whatever changes they see fit. Which of course could be good, but might stray way further from the source than they already do.

If they can find a big name that loves the character then I think we'd be in safe hands. But I fear there's less of a chance of that happening.

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