Marvel Studios Could Expand Their Offerings To Three or Four Movies Annually

While most studios don't painstakingly parcel out exactly how many movies they plan to make in a given year -- opting instead to make them as opportunity, schedules and funding permit -- that hasn't been the case so far with Marvel Studios. They may, however, be moving in that direction. The superhero arm of the Walt Disney Company, who make basically one kind of movie and whose films all interconnect, have so far limited themselves to just two movies a year, operating on the logic that it's more important to get the movies you're making just perfect than it is to make more movies and thus a little more cash. Now, though, they've got a handful of successful franchises, though (and are hoping to build more over the next few years), along with a slate of television shows that includes five miniseries on Netflix and an ongoing series on ABC which tie into the universe of the live-action films, plus a pair of animated shows on Disney XD. The organization is growing rapidly and since all of the movies have been big financial successes since the second abortive attempt to launch a Hulk franchise, the division is one of Disney's most moneymaking. There's likely internal pressure to create more, not only because the movies are wildly successful but because there's a conventional wisdom in Hollywood that the current glut of superhero movies will eventually stop being sustainable. All of this means one thing: it's not only plausible, but actually fiscally responsible for Marvel to make more than just two films a year, provided their first attempts to do so don't turn out to be disastrous. But will they? Studio head Kevin Feige won't commit to it, but in an interview with Badass Digest, he certainly sounds bullish on the idea. "I think television is filling some of that now, in terms of bringing out more product," Feige said when asked whether three or four movies a year -- a goal he'd said in the past he'd like to build Marvel up to be able to accomplish -- was within reach. "That's certainly the idea with the Netflix shows. But I don't know that we will necessarily say 'Okay, we're now moving strategically to three a year, now we're moving to four a year.' What I think is more likely - if [knocks on wood-like table] the next group of movies work and people want to see additional stories - we'll have too many franchises and you can't do one of each franchise every two or three years. We'd have to move to three a year, but that would have to be a natural move if it were to occur. We'd have a [script] draft, we'd have a filmmaker, we'd have a character the audience wants to see - let's slot in a place for a third one. Or a fourth one."