The glorious world of Marvel, with its flashy superheroes and edge-of-the-seat plot twists, has earned its place in the hearts of audiences worldwide. However, Disney CEO Bob Iger points at the Marvel brand’s recent “diluted focus” due to several television series releases. He opines this could be a factor behind the brand’s slipping box office performance.
The Marvel Magic Losing Its Luster?
Marvel’s cinematic universe (MCU) has had an impressive run, especially with the triumphant one-two punch of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. These blockbusters concluded MCU Phase 3, boasting worldwide box office grosses of $2.1 billion and $2.8 billion, positioning them at No. 6 and 2 on the all-time box office ranking.
However, only two Marvel movies have crossed the coveted billion-dollar mark after these mega-hits – the Sony co-productions Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home. However, only the latter could make its way into the Top 20 grosser of all time, while Far From Home sits at No. 30.
Notably, the only non-Spider-Man Marvel movie to come close to hitting the billion-dollar mark was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which grossed $956 million. Contrastingly, Black Widow, with a global collection of $380 million, was the least successful Marvel offering post-Endgame, its performance hindered by a simultaneous Disney+ Premier Access release.
A recent release, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania couldn’t breach the $500 million barrier, while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, though currently at $841 million, seems to struggle to reach the billion-dollar milestone.
“There have been some disappointments. We would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better,”
Iger voiced at the annual Sun Valley Conference, bringing media and tech industry A-listers together.
A Question of Quantity Over Quality?
A significant change in Marvel’s content strategy has been its thrust into the television space. Since January 2021, the company has rolled out eight live-action TV series on Disney+. Iger speculates that this shift towards producing a volume of content primarily for their streaming services led to overtaxing Marvel’s resources and affecting the focus on their film offerings.
“I think in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve mostly our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people way beyond — in terms of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been.”
Iger further elaborated,
“Marvel’s a great example of that. They had not been in the TV business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention at Marvel Studios.”
He concluded by expressing his belief that this shift in focus might be a more substantial cause for the recent box office underperformance than any other factor.
Whether this assertion holds true or not, only time will tell. For now, Disney and Marvel may have to introspect and strike a more effective balance between their film and television offerings and perhaps focus more on depth and less on breadth. The audience waits with bated breath for the next move from this entertainment behemoth.
