Marvel Sequels on Chopping Block as Disney Rethinks Strategy
It's not time to hit the panic button yet, but Disney CEO Bob Iger wants to save the Marvel Cinematic Universe by bringing in more new characters and making fewer sequels.
When Is the Age of Marvel over?”
As you’d probably expect, returning Disney CEO Bob Iger’s answer is “no.” Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference (via Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. If that’s struggling, then most studios want a similar run of bad luck.
Still, Iger sees trouble on the horizon, and with it a need for course correction. “I think we just have to look at what characters and stories we’re mining,” he explained. Taken by itself, that comment might seem to suggest a return to the tried and true heroes of the MCU, more of Chris Hemsworth’s Captain America. But Iger is looking forward, not backward.
“If you look at the trajectory of Marvel in the next five years, there will be a lot of newness,” he proclaimed. “We’re going to turn back to the Avengers franchise with a whole new set of Avengers, for example.” Iger neglected to say which new Avengers he had in mind, nor exactly how new he was thinking. We’ve certainly seen a lot of lesser known Marvel characters make it to live action — in the past twelve months, MODOK and Monica Rambeau aka Spectrum.
But while Iger’s excited about getting these new characters out there, he doesn’t want them to overstay their welcome. “What we have to look at at Marvel is not necessarily the volume of Marvel stories we’re telling but how many times we go back to the well on certain characters?” he asked. “Sequels typically work well for us. Do you need a third and a fourth, for instance, or is it time to turn to other characters?”
While that means it’s more likely than it was before Iger’s comments that we won’t see a fourth Ant-Man movie or a third Doctor Strange, it does mean that we’ll get a unified roster and the chance for even more obscure Marvel characters to get their due. And if there’s anyone who can turn the tide for Marvel, it’s Z-List Avenger Demolition Man.
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Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!