Bob Iger Blames Disney+ Launch for "Diluting Focus" of Marvel and Pixar Projects
Days after extending his contract through 2026, Disney CEO Robert Iger blamed the launch of Disney+ and the COVID-19 pandemic for the creative and financial issues facing Pixar and Marvel Studios. The executive, who retired in 2020 but returned when his successor turned out to be a disaster, blames Marvel's focus on TV for "diluted focus and attention" on the MCU movies that have failed to connect since Avengers: Endgame in 2019. He also said that Pixar suffered as a result of sending three of their releases direct-to-streaming during the early days of the pandemic.
Hollywood has long viewed streaming as the future of the business, but as Netflix proved, it can be a long road to profitability even in the best of circumstances. The pandemic pushed the studios to make aggressive moves that served the consumer but ultimately cost them some money in the short term. Now that business has returned to normal, virtually every streamer is taking on more consumer-hostile practices, and Disney is far from the only studio blaming the pivot to streaming for its recent dip in revenue.
"There have been some disappointments we would have liked some of our more recent releases to perform better," Iger told TheWrap. "It's reflective not as a problem from a personnel perspective, but I think in our in our zeal to basically grow our content significantly to serve mostly our streaming offerings, we ended up taxing our people way beyond — in terms of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been."
In other words, "to try and make Disney+ worthwhile, we made decisions that hurt other parts of the business. That's likely true at least in part, but it's also something that isn't unique to Disney. With blockbuster box office hauls depressed across the board, it's hard not to imagine that part of the problem is that the studios are so eager for a return to "normal" that they haven't figured out a way to monetize the shorter exclusivity windows and higher overall volume of content creation that have been hallmarks of the streaming era.
"Marvel's a great example of that," Iger continued. "They had not been in the TV business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention. That is, I think, more of the cause than anything."
Iger pointed specifically to the shortened theatrical windows as a reason for Pixar's current struggles. Again, there's probably some truth there, but exclusivity windows had already started shrinking prior to March 2020, and at the time, it didn't seem to be having a negative impact on box office.
"There were three Pixar releases in a row that went direct to streaming, in part because of — mostly because of COVID," Iger said. "And I think that may have created an expectation in the audience that they're going to eventually be on streaming and probably quickly, and there wasn't an urgency. And then I think there was some, I think you'd have to agree that there was some creative misses, as well."