Bob Iger said during Disney’s earnings call that the studio does not have a priority when it comes to movie sequels, remakes and original content, despite the upcoming slate being overwhelmingly dominated by franchise fare like “Freakier Friday,” “Predator: Badlands,” “Tron: Ares,” “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Disney is only seeking to make great movies, the CEO stressed.
“We continue to be focused on creating new IP,” Iger said. “Obviously, that’s of great value to us long term. But we also know that the popularity of our older IP remains significant, and the opportunities to either produce sequels or convert what was previously animation to live action, like we’re doing with ‘Moana’ in 2026, it’s just a great opportunity for the company and supports our franchise. So I wouldn’t say that we’ve got a priority one way or the other. Our priority is to put out great movies that ultimately resonate with consumers.”
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“The more we can find and develop original property, the better,” Iger continued. “Of course, we are developing original property under the 20th Century banner and under the Searchlight banner. And look, you could even argue that Marvel continues to mine its library of characters for original property. Even though, for instance, there have been Fantastic Four movies before, we kind of consider the one we did an original property in many respects, because we’re introducing those characters to people who are not familiar with them at all.”
“Fantastic Four: First Steps” had a strong opening for Disney’s Marvel Studios last month with $125 million, but it dropped off a sharp 66% in its second weekend despite strong reviews and word of mouth. Still, Iger said on the earnings call that Marvel’s “Fantastic Four” reboot “successfully launched this important franchise into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” He also touted the “Zootopia” and “Avatar” sequels arriving later this year as strong candidates for box office success while celebrating the $1 billion success of the live-action “Lilo & Stitch” movie.
The “Fantastic Four” drop was one of Marvel’s steeper second-weekend declines. While it was better than “The Marvels” (down 78%), it was alarmingly in the range of box office flops like February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” (down 68%) and 2023’s “Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (down 70%).
Elsewhere on the earnings call, Iger touted the upcoming unification of Hulu and Disney+ into a single app sometime in 2026. While Disney’s franchises, from Marvel to “Star Wars,” live on Disney+, it has relegated Searchlight and 20th Century titles to Hulu in the U.S. Starting in 2026, all of these films will live in the same app.
“By combining them, we hope to increase engagement more,” Iger said, while downplaying that such a move will need the studio to increase its content spend.
“As it relates to content spend, I’d say that from a domestic perspective you shouldn’t expect that we need to increase the spend on content significantly,” Iger explained. “Where we believe we should be investing is to grow our international businesses. So one, we’re going to brand the general entertainment from Star to Hulu across the country, across the world. Two, these technological advancements will obviously help in markets where our engagement has not been as high as they need to be. Three, we probably will invest in very selective markets internationally, where we really feel there’s a potential to grow our bottom line, to grow subs and to grow advertising revenue.”
Next up for Disney as the box office is the release of “Freakier Friday,” which is tracking for a solid opening in the $27 million to $30 million range.
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