Bob Iger Says They Are Pulling Back on ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel – Examining the Context and Why He Was Probably Talking Primarily About Marvel
On Thursday morning, shortly before the actors union announced that they would be going on strike after the studios failed to meet their demands to sign a new contract that would adapt to the current business model adopted by those very companies, Disney CEO Bob Iger appeared on CNBC to speak about the present and future of the company. In that interview, Iger made some comments about a possible slowdown in Star Wars content; let us examine his remarks in a larger context.
Iger was asked if Disney will be pulling back on Marvel and Star Wars, to which he immediately replied:
“Yes. You pull back not just to focus but it’s also part of our cost-containment initiative, spending less. Spending less on what we make and making less.”
It must be stressed, then, that because it was a dual question it’s possible that Iger was speaking in broad terms, and specifically more about Marvel. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has already said they will be spacing out their releases and rethinking their overall strategy, so everything seems to be on the same page there. As far as Star Wars goes, this doesn’t come exactly as a surprise either, but the situation is a bit different than Marvel’s.
Earlier this year, Iger said that to maximize the revenue, Disney would be doubling down on franchises, but prioritizing quality over quantity. Marvel and Star Wars tend to be put together here because of their similar contribution to the company, at least when they are both in good shape. However, Star Wars hasn’t put out a movie in theaters since December 2019, and we have three more years to go before the next one, which Iger has said before that they will be making sure it’s the right one.
So is Disney going to be cutting down on Star Wars? Let’s look at the overall situation. In that same interview, Iger also talked about how Marvel’s increase in the number of movies and television series over the past few years “diluted focus and attention”. It is for this reason that Iger’s comments above probably refer to Marvel more so than Star Wars, but Lucasfilm is likely going to be affected in the same way to prevent the same results. It is also for this reason that it sounds like Iger refers to Disney Plus series more so than movies, as Star Wars has been out of the theatrical business for a bit.
And yet, when we look at the current state of the franchise, this doesn’t come exactly as a surprise! What do we know is coming out next? Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, and The Acolyte have all wrapped filming, meaning most of the money from those budgets has either been spent already, or is already allocated to be spent in post-production. In a similar way, Andor has less than two months left of filming; it’s unknown yet how the SAG-AFTRA strike will affect it, given how other UK productions are allowed to continue filming, but we know that is also in very good shape. That wraps it up for the rest of 2023 and 2024. But then what?
2025, at this point, is pretty much empty. The Mandalorian season 4 was going to start filming this fall, but that is likely to be pushed back indefinitely. We know that second seasons of Ahsoka and The Acolyte have been mapped out but not greenlit yet, so we wouldn’t be getting those until late 2025/2026 at the earliest. Animated shows in development include The Bad Batch season 3 and Tales of the Jedi season 2, both of which are slated for 2024 (though the latter could be pushed back because of the SAG-AFTRA strike).
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Lucasfilm is not developing other series. A live-action Lando series and an animated adventure film titled A Droid Story were announced over 3.5 years ago and they seem dead in the water. Reports earlier this year pointed to Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni developing a new series codenamed “Ghost Track 17”, which could either be The Mandalorian season 4, another New Republic era-based series, or just pure fantasy. But the fact that no new series were announced during Star Wars Celebration, with Lucasfilm knowing it’d be two years without another convention, sort of already hinted that they may be looking at spacing out their Disney Plus pipeline, and perhaps even focus more on the movies.
Because on the feature film side, though, we know they are cooking a lot. They announced three films in development at Celebration, and just recently set three dates on the theatrical calendar for 2026-2027. On top of that, we know that Taika Waititi and Shawn Levy are also developing their own projects. All of this combined tells us that Iger was probably referring to slowing down on Disney Plus Star Wars series as they look to get back in the movie business, which was always the most profitable side for them, and what actually makes sense for the company.
Cutting down on the number of projects isn’t the only measure that Disney will be implementing — they are also re-examining the budgets, which is extremely necessary. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny‘s budget was, according to reports, around the $300M figure. Disney will fall way behind in turning a profit on that movie. Similarly, it was mentioned in a recent story by The Hollywood Reporter that Andor cost $250M. This is a completely unrealistic budget, and no matter how many views or Emmy nominations the show would get, Disney Plus is simply not getting it back. (This speaks to the larger issue of the economics of streaming, which is at the same time part of why the streaming bubble is about to burst, much quicker than anyone anticipated at the studios.) Skeleton Crew, a series led by four unknown kids, reportedly cost $136M. No wonder they are cutting down on budgets.
You can check out the section of the interview where Iger talks about Marvel and Star Wars slowing down their output here:
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
