With the massive success of “Avengers: Endgame”, which became the most successful film at the box office of all time.  Marvel was on fire with almost every film release, and with the launch of Disney+ in 2019, Marvel Studios was tasked with creating new shows for the streaming service.

The first batch of shows, which included “WandaVision,” “Loki,” and “The Falcon And The Winter Soldier,” were hits with viewers, especially since audiences were still restricted by the pandemic.  This was followed by many more shows such as “Ms Marvel”, “Hawkeye”, “Moon Knight”, “She-Hulk”, “Echo”, “Agatha All Along” and “Secret Invasion”.

However, over the next few years, the shine fell off Marvel Studios’ releases, and as the number of releases increased, the quality of the product was reduced. Fans started to get burned out on the endless stream of shows and films. Viewership of new Marvel shows on Disney+ has been in decline, and many of the Marvel movies have failed to ignite the box office success of the previous sagas.

Following the return of Bob Iger as CEO in late 2022, the company has gone through some major changes internally, with Marvel Studios taking steps to fix the problem by drastically reducing the amount of content in development and slow down the new releases, not just to reduce franchise fatigue, but to increase quality of the product.

During a recent quarterly investors call, Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke about how they’ve realised they over did the amount of shows and films being created by Marvel Studios, but have changed course.

I’ve talked about Marvel a lot. We all know that in our Zeal to Flood our streaming platform with more content that we turn to all of our creative engines, including Marvel and had them produce a lot more. We’ve also learned over time that quantity does not necessarily beget quality.

And frankly, we’ve all admitted to ourselves that we lost a little focus by making too much and by bringing Marvel — by consolidating a bit and having Marvel focus much more on their films, we believe it will result in better quality. And I think the first and best example is Thunderbolts. So feel very good about that.

In 2025, nine different projects from Marvel Studios will be released in cinemas and on Disney+, including three theatrical films, three live-action shows on Disney+, and three different animated projects. But moving into 2026, that number will be drastically reduced.  Many of the projects released this year have been delayed, as Disney looked to cut back on what it was making and space out its releases over multiple years.

Moving forward, there will also be more separation between the movies and shows, with fewer characters jumping between projects.  The TV shows will also continue to be made on a smaller budget, and they are being planned as multi-season shows, compared to the previous method. 

Roger’s Take: Disney knows it overdid some of its franchises like Marvel and Star Wars.  They spent a fortune on making new shows for Disney+ that didn’t deliver the subscriber numbers or viewership numbers they needed to keep investing in new content.   They’ve course corrected, but as with any large company, it takes time for those changes to take effect, and now that we are coming to the end of those previously announced shows and films being released, things are going to look very different moving into 2026 and beyond.

Do you agree with Bob Iger’s comments about making too many Marvel shows for Disney+?  Let me know on social media!

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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