Disney Is Canceling Films That Aren’t ‘Strong Enough’

Although they haven’t made any public changes to their release calendar, Disney has apparently canceled several of their previously upcoming film projects.

That’s according to Disney CEO Bob Iger, speaking this week at a conference in San Francisco. Asked about how he was going to turn around Disney’s slumping movie studio, he claimed the company had already been making major moves in that regard behind the scenes.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, here is what he said...

You have to kill things you no longer believe in, and that’s not easy in this business, because either you’ve gotten started, you have some sunk costs, or it’s a relationship with either your employees or with the creative community ... It’s not an easy thing, but you got to make those tough calls. We’ve actually made those tough calls. We’ve not been that public about it, but we’ve killed a few projects already, that we just didn’t feel were strong enough.

WireImage,

Iger did not specify which projects Disney has shelved.

That means fans are inevitably going to speculate about which projects Disney is or is not making now. There are certainly some potential candidates, and in just about every area of Disney’s film business. Marvel’s move slate has struggled in the last year or two, and it’s quite conceivable that they are not going to make several titles they could have and maybe would have made if all their films were clicking with audiences. Do we think we’ll ever see an Eternals 2 or a sequel to The Marvels after their tepid reviews and box office? I think that is quite unlikely.

(Iger could have also conceivably been referring to the original plan for Avengers 5, which was going to be called The Kang Dynasty and would have starred Jonathan Majors. According to widespread online reports, the film is now happening under a new creative team, with a new title, and a new villain; Majors was fired by Marvel late last year.)

The next Marvel movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, opens in July. Iger himself said at the conference that he expects it “will be one of the more successful Marvel movies we’ve had in a long time.” I mean, what else is going to say? That it stinks?