CEO Bob Iger confirmed a plan to shift Marvel content output over the coming years on a recent Disney earnings call.
Since COVID-19 and the start of Bob Chapek's brief tenure as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, the MCU has seen pushback for heavy reliance on quantity over quality.
At San Diego Comic-Con 2022, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige announced many planned projects, all meant to be completed within a few years. Since then, much of that content has been delayed or changed significantly, if not both.
Marvel Studios ' Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation Brad Winderbaum said in April that Marvel has "to be a little bit more judicious with [its] choices" regarding what hits Disney+ now, a big shift since those Hall H announcements.
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Disney CEO Announces Shift in MCU Releases
During the Walt Disney Company's Quarter 2 Earnings Call on May 7, CEO Bob Iger revealed plans to slowly reduce MCU content output over the coming years.
Iger said he has "been working hard" at implementing this across Disney, but it is "particularly true with Marvel."
He explained that some of the television content Marvel will be releasing relatively soon "is a vestige" of when the company specifically focused on raising the volume of MCU projects:
"I’ve been working hard with the studio to reduce output and focus more on quality. That’s particularly true with Marvel. I know you mentioned television shows — some of what is coming up is a vestige of basically a desire in the past to increase volume."
Iger then revealed plans to "decrease volume." Specifically, he plans to move to "two TV series a year" rather than "what had become four" and to do the same for movies, with "two to, at the maximum, three."
He said that this path would be followed "slowly" but added later that the company is "working hard on what that path is:"
"We’re slowly going to decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four, and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two to, at the maximum, three."
Iger assured fans that Disney has faith in its upcoming slate of MCU movies, with "a couple of good films in '25" and future Avengers projects that the company is "extremely excited about:"
"We've got a couple of good films in '25, and then we're heading to more Avengers, which we're extremely excited about."
This is a sentiment Iger has expressed before, such as his comments at a 2023 earnings call. He said that "quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality," and that he feels that, in that regard, the company "lost some focus:"
"And I’ve always felt that quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality, and I think that’s exactly what happened. We lost some focus."
Will This Change MCU Phases 5 & 6 More?
Phases 5 and 6 have already seen several major delays, even before this MCU release schedule shift. It would not be unprecedented for some of these projects to get pushed back even more to align with Bob Iger's new plan.
However, this seems relatively unlikely for the immediate future. First, Iger specified that the changes would be happening "slowly."
He also prefaced the announcement by saying that many upcoming shows will still be from the quantity-over-quality era, implying they may not see the new release schedule implemented.
Especially given Iger's shout-out of "good films in '25," it feels fairly unlikely there will be a decrease from the current plan.
2025 has four MCU movie releases: Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, The Fantastic Four, and Blade. This is still on the "maybe a four a year" current movie schedule Iger wants to change.
For now, fans can be certain that the next MCU project, Deadpool & Wolverine, will hit theaters on July 26.
Gillian Blum has been a writer at The Direct since 2022, reporting primarily from New York City. Though she covers news from across the entertainment industry, Gillian has a particular focus on Marvel and DC, including comics, movies, and television shows. She also commonly reports on Percy Jackson, Invincible, and other similar franchises.
