Disney CEO Blames MCU Executives For The Marvels" Box Office Failure

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Summary

Bob Iger believes that the excessive amount of content produced by Marvel Studios of late has affected the quality of the entire franchise.
Iger points out that the lack of executive supervision on set due to the COVID-19 pandemic during the filming of The Marvels was the primary reason for its underperformance.
Iger does not attribute the film's failure to the 2023 strikes that were prolonged by studio executives and resulted in franchise filmmaking receiving less publicity.

Bob Iger, Disney's CEO, has weighed in on why he thinks 2023's The Marvels performed poorly at the box office. Despite The Marvels' cliffhanger ending and exciting future set-up, the film followed the downward trend of superhero cinema in that it drastically underperformed at the worldwide box office. Many assumed that the lack of publicity the film received due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes was the main catalyst for The Marvels' box office failure, with Marvel's 2024 movie releases thankfully avoiding the same fate now that the strikes are over. However, Disney's Chief Executive Officer does not echo these sentiments regarding the film's box office haul.

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As reported by The Verge, Bob Iger gave his thoughts on why the MCU's latest film failed to meet expectations. Speaking at the NYT Dealbook Summit in November 2023, Iger reportedly stated that the overwhelming amount of content being produced by Marvel Studios of late is to blame for the franchise's lack of quality. Regarding The Marvels' commercial performance specifically, Iger stated: "The Marvels was shot during Covid, and there wasn't enough supervision on set [from executives]." In a show of true irony, Iger's comments make it clear that Disney's CEO does not think the blame for the film's failure falls on the shoulders of studio executives responsible for the 2023 strikes that reduced the overall publicity of franchise filmmaking.
The Marvels' Box Office Is Part Of A Larger MCU Problem

While the 2023 strikes were likely a leading factor in The Marvels' underperformance, there is no denying that Iger has a point concerning his comments on the wider status of the MCU. The overabundance of content that has been churned out of Marvel Studios since Avengers: Endgame has undoubtedly caused some semblance of fatigue. The sheer amount of new characters, plot threads, sub-sections of the universe, and now the multiverse has led to the MCU losing a lot of focus and thus, a lot of what made it special during the Infinity Saga.
This has negatively impacted several of the movies being released of late in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as have the revelations surrounding the behind-the-scenes issues with the franchise. From the announcement that Marvel Studios is completely overhauling its TV production line to revert to more classic TV formats rather than six-episode miniseries' to the pushing back of Marvel's entire movie slate leaving only Deadpool 3 to release in 2024, it is clear that the team at Marvel Studios is spreading itself too thin to produce the same quality as it used to. The Marvels’ poor box office is, unfortunately, emblematic of these issues which the MCU must fix going forward.
Source: The Verge
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