You know what Walt Disney never, ever said?
That he was proud of “the IP that we’re mining.”
Because Walt Disney was not, so far as I’m aware, an alien robot hellbent on intergalactic domination — he was a creative genius.
No, that dystopian string of words was uttered by current Disney CEO Bob Iger during a quarterly earnings call on Tuesday.
“The team is one that I have tremendous confidence in,” he began.
So far, so good. But A-Iger wasn’t finished yet.
“And the IP that we’re mining, including all the sequels that we’re doing, is second to none,” added Bob-Bot 2000.
Forget “when you wish upon a star.” Now, it’s “when you drill upon IP.”
Even though Marvel Studios, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and many other House of Mouse properties have wobbled the past few years with uninspired retreads that the ticket-buying public has given the cold shoulder, the clueless exec is still laser-focused on more sequels and universes.
A company that was once a bastion of newness, talent and innovation has become a bunch of talking trademarks.
“We had gone through a period where our original films and animation, both Disney and Pixar, were dominating,” Iger said. “We’re now swinging back a bit to lean on sequels.”
A bit?!
Just this year alone, theaters will get “Inside Out 2,” “Moana 2” and “Mufasa: The Lion King.”
Then in 2025 there’s “Zootopia 2,” and in 2026 comes “Toy Story 5.”
Everywhere you look, there are numbers and colons.
And, as if the situation couldn’t get any bleaker, while all of those familiar follow-ups are being pumped out, Disney will also deliver live-action remakes of “Snow White” and the first “Moana.”
It’s a small world after all, indeed.
Meanwhile over at mopey Marvel, which has had embarrassing misfires with “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” Iger said the brilliant strategy there is to simply do slightly fewer projects. Yeah — that’ll fix everything!
They aim to “decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two, or a maximum of three,” the ‘ger-minator said.
Really? Thirty-three wasn’t enough?
Perhaps lessening the load will lead to higher quality MCU product with actually respectable CGI. And, of course, audiences are more likely to latch onto something solid than something mediocre.
However, there is an undeniable superhero fatigue going on, and three movies and two TV shows over a 12-month period is still a huge amount to expect audiences to give their time to.
How alarming it is to see Iger dismiss originality as a fad from a bygone era, when it’s what Disney’s entire legacy is built on.
The CEO’s real problem isn’t the volatile marketplace — it’s personnel. He needs better, more imaginative people behind the camera. After all, none of these underwhelming sequels would exist were it not for the brilliant minds who took a risk on an out-there idea in the first place.
“The Lion King,” for instance, about a boy animal, was an incredibly gutsy move in 1994 for the studio famous for beautiful princesses. Obviously, it paid off big time for them.
Thirty years later, Disney is still lazily riding Simba’s coattails.
Pardon. Mining the IP.
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