Disney CEO Bob Iger is touting “newness” regarding the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The CEO questioned if Marvel needed to keep producing numerous sequels for individual characters while speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference. His remarks were made amid the most recent MCU tentpole’s critical and box office failure.
“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” “Sequels typically worked well for us,” Iger said at the conference. “Do you need a third and a fourth, for instance? Or is it time to turn to other characters?”
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Not only is “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” one of the worst-reviewed Marvel films in history (its 48% on Rotten Tomatoes nearly matches the record-low “Eternals” score of 47%), but the film dropped a massive 69% at the box office in its second weekend, marking the second-biggest drop in MCU history. “Quantumania” currently stands at $420 million worldwide and $189 million domestically.
While these grosses are higher than the first two “Ant-Man” movies, they’re also underwhelming considering “Quantumania” kicks off Phase 5 of the MCU and introduces the new Thanos-sized villain of the franchise in Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer.
“There’s nothing in any way inherently off in terms of the Marvel brand,” Iger added. “I think we just have to look at what characters and stories we’re mining, and you look at the trajectory of Marvel over the next five years, you’ll see a lot of newness. We’re going to turn back to the Avengers franchise, but with a whole different set of Avengers.”
While the Disney+ series’ second season is in the upcoming schedule for Marvel, “Loki” includes new MCU additions like Blade and Fantastic Four as well as movies focusing on already-existing Marvel characters like Captain Marvel and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
In addition, Deadpool by Ryan Reynolds and Wolverine by Hugh Jackman are on their way to the MCU. Two “Avengers” movies are currently on Disney’s theatrical release calendar with 2025’s “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” and 2026’s “Avengers: Secret Wars.” Further highlights of Iger’s speech at the Morgan Stanley conference may be found here.
