Kevin Feige Addresses Marvel’s Disney+ Original Future

July 20, 2025 Roger Palmer

Over the past few years, it’s been well documented that Marvel lost its way following the success of the last two “Avengers” movies, with most of its recent releases like “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Ironheart” underperforming, either at the box office or in terms of viewership on Disney+.

There has been much speculation and discussion over why this has happened, with many pointing to a reduction in quality as Marvel Studios started pumping out more content for Disney+, as mandated by former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, along with an overall problem with superhero fatigue as when combined with lower quality releases from DC and Sony, fans checked out.

During a recent interview with major trade publications at Marvel HQ to promote the upcoming “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” movie, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige spoke about several topics, including further confirmation that we can expect to see far fewer new original live-action series arriving on Disney+ in the future.

The reason for this reduction comes down to a reaction to the shows and films that have been released over the past few years since the “Multiverse” Saga began after the events of “Avengers: Endgame”. With Kevin explaining”

“We produced 50 hours of stories between 2007 and 2019. “But in the six years since “Avengers: Endgame” concluded the Infinity Saga, we’ve had well over 100 hours of stories — in half the time. That’s too much.”

During the “Multiverse” saga, there have been over 127 hours of shows and movies, so by the time all of the releases of 2026 and 2027 are included, it’s likely going to be triple that of the “Infinity” saga.

“For the first time ever, quantity trumped quality. We spent 12 years working on the Infinity Saga saying that’s never going to happen to us. We always had more characters than we could possibly make because we weren’t going to make a movie a month. Suddenly, there’s a mandate to make more. And we go, ‘Well, we do have more.’”

The experimentation and the evolution of, I’m proud of and wouldn’t change. It’s the expansion that is certainly what devalued [the studio and its content]

It was a big company push, and it doesn’t take too much to push us to go, ‘People have been asking for Ms. Marvel for years, and now we can do it? Do it! Oscar Isaac wants to be Moon Knight? Do it!’ So there was a mandate that we were put in the middle of, but we also thought it’d be fun to bring these to life.”

While Marvel has been experimenting with adding lots of new characters to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, such as She-Hulk, Ms Marvel, Agatha, Moon Knight, Ms Marvel and many more, they have realised that this massive expansion didn’t work.

“What we also ended up focusing on because of Disney+ was expansion — and it’s that expansion that I think led people to say, It used to be fun, but now do I have to know everything about all of these?’ And I think The Marvels hit it hardest where people are like, ‘Okay, I recognize her from a billion dollar movie. But who are those other two? I guess they were in some TV show. I’ll skip it.’”

We’ve seen Marvel drastically cut back how many new shows it’s releasing on Disney+, and one way it’s done that is by slowing down the releases of content it has already made. Kevin Feige confirmed that both “Wonder Man” and “Ironheart” wrapped filming in 2023, and they’ve been sitting on those shows for years, to spread out their releases. With Kevin Feige adding:

“I don’t like when things sit on shelves,”

Marvel has just wrapped production on a new “Vision” series for Disney+, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this show held back for a 2027 release, especially since the second season of “Daredevil: Born Again” is set to hit Disney+ in March next year.

One of the big benefits from the launch of Marvel shows on Marvel, was that it was supposed to allow for more expansion of characters, unlike the days prior to Disney+, with shows like “Agents Of S.H. I.E.L.D.” and “Daredevil” being separate from the movies.

“I think allowing a TV show to be a TV show is what we’re returning to,”

Marvel has released a few movies, such as “Thunderbolts*”, “Captain America: Brave New World” and “The Marvels”, which underperformed at the box office. One aspect that the executives didn’t expect was that fans who didn’t watch the Disney+ shows avoided them, as Kevin explained:

“‘Thunderbolts*’ I thought was a very, very good movie. But nobody knew that title and many of those characters were from a [TV] show. Some [audiences] were still feeling that notion of, ‘I guess I had to have seen these other shows to understand who this is.’ If you actually saw the movie, that wouldn’t be the case, and we make the movie so that’s not the case. But I think we still have to make sure the audience understands that.”

Roger’s Take: Reducing the number of shows on Disney+ from Marvel and Star Wars, will also no doubt help boost the box office of upcoming Marvel films, but more importantly for executives, drastically reduce the amount of money being spent on new original programming. It’s also no doubt a major reason why the impending expected merger between Disney+ and Hulu is more important, with fewer big mainstream originals being made, they need something to fill the void for adult audiences.

Without doubt, the push to overload Disney+ with too many Marvel, along with Pixar and Star Wars shows, drastically impacted the quality, and it’s going to take years to reestablish those brands in the eyes of its fans. The era of numerous Marvel and Star Wars live-action shows being released each year on Disney+ is over.