The Walt Disney Company is one of the biggest companies in the world, which is known for its quality, entertainment, and family-friendly content. Eventually, the company gathered a loyal fanbase and owns two popular franchises, that is Marvel and Star Wars which are known for their compelling stories, rich world-building, nail-biting thriller, and high-stakes action.
However, in the recent films of both franchises, none of those characteristics could be seen. The new trilogy of Star Wars was so disappointing that Lucasfilm had to cancel their upcoming plans for the franchise to discuss what could be done to match the levels of the original films. On the other hand, Marvel’s phase 5 is already bleak looking. Since neither of the two popular franchises is giving the expected result, Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney stated how they will reduce the number of their films to focus on quality.
What will Bob Iger’s Disney Do to Improve the Quality of their Films?
During the Morgan Stanley conference, Bob Iger talked about how the media environment has changed; explaining that the theatrical film business has an uncertain future and a growing streaming business that is profitable. He stated that Disney is closely examining every factor of its content so that Disney can chalk out the best path forward.
He continued and stated this company would particularly be looking at how much they are spending on content, and how many projects they would go forward with in the future because that will improve the quality of their content.
“I’m really pleased that the support that I’m getting from the content creators of the company is significant and real, and it comes in the form of reducing the expense per content, whether it’s a TV series or a film, where costs have just skyrocketed in a huge way and not a supportable way in my opinion. They all agree to that.” Iger added, “Understanding how much volume we need, reducing how much we make. So it’s how much we spend on what we make and how much we make.”
The CEO stated that they are rethinking their future steps for their popular franchises, Marvel and Star Wars. He commented how sequels work well for Marvel films, but “do you need a third or a fourth?” He cleared out that he has nothing against Marvel but they to look at “what characters and stories we are mining.”
“What we have to look at at Marvel is not necessarily the volume of Marvel storytelling, but how many times we go back to the well on certain characters. Sequels typically work well for us, but do you need a third or a fourth, for instance? Or is it time to turn to other characters? There’s nothing in any way inherently off in terms of the Marvel brand. I think we just have to look at what characters and stories we are mining.”
The CEO talked about the new sequels and movie set in the Star Wars franchise were good but they did not match the levels of the original six films, so they are replanning.
“We still are developing Star Wars films. We’re going to make sure that when we make one, that it’s the right one, so we are being very careful there.”
This was a very good decision by Bob Iger to reduce the content created by the company and use that budget to create high-quality shows and movies that the fans would praise.
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What are Disney’s Future Plans?
In the same conference, Bob Iger said that since they will be reducing the number of content for their exclusive platform. But they will use it as an opportunity to make content for different streaming platforms for more business opportunities to sell elsewhere.
“And as we look to reduce the content that we’re creating for our own platforms, there probably are opportunities to license to third parties. For a while that was verboten or something we couldn’t possibly do, because we were so favoring our own streaming platforms.”
“But if we get to a point where we need less content for those platforms, and we still have the capability of producing that content, why not use it to grow revenue? And that’s what we would likely do.”
It is a great plan by Disney to make content for another platform because the company has a massive fan base that is multi-generational. If they created content, it will increase their appeal to more viewers giving them more watch time for their exclusive content on Disney+.
Also Read: Kevin Feige Reportedly Quitting $29B MCU to Hyperdrive Into Star Wars After Consecutive Flops
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
