Even Disney’s own chief executive now admits what many Marvel fans have said over the last few years: The company sacrificed a bit of quality for a lot of quantity, pumping a ton of streaming TV series onto Disney+ while also maintaining a lot of movie releases. And some of those shows and films were not up to the high standard that the studio had established in the prior decade.
On a Disney investor call, CEO Bob Iger agreed with that assessment of Marvel’s last few years, which included such misfires as Secret Invasion, Moon Knight, and Captain America: Brave New World. Speaking in broad strokes about the studio’s work over the last few years, Iger said …
…in our zeal to flood our streaming platform with more content, that we turned to all of our creative engines, including Marvel, and had them produce a lot more … And frankly, we’ve all admitted to ourselves that we lost a little focus by making too much.
READ MORE: One Thunderbolts* Character Almost Had a Very Different Storyline
Iger made the concession in the context of noting that the studio is now “consolidating a bit” and focusing “much more on their films.” And he also said he feels “the first and best example” of that approach is the just-released Thunderbolts*, which has indeed garnered Marvel’s best responses from critics and fans in a couple of years.
With titles like The Fantastic Four: First Steps and two Avengers sequels coming in the next several years, Marvel could be poised for a major comeback. Of course, in order to do that, the films will have to be good. But at the very least, there���s evidence between those three films (and the big asterisk twist from Thunderbolts*) that Marvel is currently looking to double down on their biggest and most popular franchises.
I suspect we will be seeing far fewer titles featuring more obscure characters like Moon Knight or Eternals for the foreseeable future. (It sounds like we’ll be seeing far fewer TV titles overall, but I would think when they do occasionally happen they’ll be more like Loki or Daredevil: Born Again, shows with characters who are already established in movies or prior other adaptations.)
Thunderbolts* is in theaters now. The next Marvel movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set to debut on July 25.
The Best Performances in Marvel Movies
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a lot of great performers — none better than the ones given by the 15 stars listed below.
