For years, Disney was hitting home runs out of its studios, including Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar, with almost every release becoming huge box office hits or television rating winners, but over the past year, the box office numbers have reduced and viewing numbers have declined.

There are many reasons for these, and recently, during an interview with CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger was asked about what’s going on with Disney’s content not hitting the same heights it used to.  Iger explains that over the course of the hundred-year history of the company, Disney has had many peaks and valleys with its entertainment. While not fully admitting they are in a lull, he explained that there have been some changes over the past few years, and he is looking to improve on this.

Disney has been pushing forward with creating as much content as possible for Disney+ to grow the platform, which has resulted in the creatives at Disney’s studios becoming too stretched.  This has resulted in some of its content not being at its best, which has resulted in less-than-stellar results at the box office.  Bob explained that “Our zeal to grow our content to grow our streaming offerings” and that it “has diluted focus and attention at Marvel, Pixar and other pillars of the content engine”.

Bob Iger confirmed that we are going to be seeing much less Marvel and Star Wars content in the future, which lines up with what we’ve heard in the past from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and reports that the Marvel teams have been too stretched, resulting in corners being cut.  It’s also why Lucasfilm hasn’t been able to get a Star Wars film off the ground for years, because it’s been churning out too many Star Wars shows.

“Marvel is a great example of that. It had not been in the television business at any significant level, and not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of TV series.  Frankly, it diluted focus and attention.”

Another major benefit of a reduction in the amount of Marvel and Star Wars shows from Bob Iger’s point of view, is that reducing the amount of Marvel and Star Wars content will have a drastic impact on their bottom line, since these shows and films are very expensive to create.

With audiences generally suffering from superhero fatigue, slowing down the amount of shows and films from Marvel, will no doubt help keep audiences more engaged, as each release becomes more of an event.  But more importantly, it should improve the overall quality of what we get to see in the future.

Both Marvel and Star Wars have been the cornerstones of content for Disney+ since it launched, but with Hulu coming into Disney+ later this year, the pressure on these two brands will be drastically reduced, as other general entertainment content can help keep fans entertained.

Do you agree with Marvel and Star Wars content being slowed down?  Let us 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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