Disney CEO Bob Iger Admits Company Has “To Be Better At Curating The Disney, And The Pixar, And The Marvel, And The Star Wars Of It All”

Kevin Feige, Alan Bergman and Bob Iger attend the Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania World Premiere at the Regency Village Theatre on Monday, February 6, 2023 in Westwood, CA.

During The Walt Disney Company’s Q1 FY 23 Earnings Results call Disney CEO Bob Iger seemed to admit the company has a quality problem with many of its major brands and franchises.

(L-R): Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano from “STAR WARS: TALES OF THE JEDI”, season 1 exclusively on Disney+. © 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.

While answering a question from Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson, Iger discussed how the company is going to cut it costs when it comes to film and TV production, but also appeared to tacitly admit the company has a quality program for much of its top brands and franchises.

Iger said, “In additionally we are going to lean more into our franchises, our core franchises, and our brands. I talked about curation in general entertainment. We have to be better at curating the Disney, and the Pixar, and the Marvel, and the Star Wars of it all.”

(L-R): Dorothy Steel as Merchant Tribe Elder, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Danai Gurira as Okoye in Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.

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“And, of course, reduce costs on everything that we make. While we are extremely what’s proud on the screen, it’s gotten to a point where it’s extraordinarily expensive. We want all the quality. We want the quality on the screen, but we have to look at what they cost us,” he continued.

“So, we are going to continue to go after [subscriptions], but we’re going to be more judicious about how we do that. We are going to look carefully at pricing,” Iger said. “We’re going to reduce costs both in content and, of course, infrastructure, there’s a lot that we’re getting at that there.”

“Marketing is another area where we are going to try and rebalance marketing the platform versus marketing the programs,” he added.

Pedro Pascal, Executive Producer Kathleen Kennedy and Disney CEO Bob Iger arrive at the premiere of Lucasfilm’s first-ever, live-action series, “The Mandalorian”, at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, CA on November 13, 2019. “The Mandalorian” streams exclusively on Disney+.(photo: Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)

From there, Iger pointed to Nielsen’s recent data that revealed the top streaming movies of 2022 that included 10 Disney produced movies: Encanto, Turning Red, Moana, Hocus Pocus 2, Frozen, Luca, Zootopia, Coco, Eternals, and Frozen II. In total the 10 films racked up 80.397 billion minutes viewed.

2022 Top 15 Streaming Movies via Nielsen

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“Nielsen came out with something a few weeks ago that was stunning to us, and that was that 10 of the top 15 movies streamed in the United States in 2022 were ours,” Iger said. “That suggests to us that our brands and franchises work extremely well in streaming. I mentioned how Wakanda Forever has done as well.” 

The Walt Disney Company previously announced that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was “the most watched Marvel film premiere on Disney+ globally.” However, they didn’t actually reveal any numbers.

Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo by Sophie Mutevelian. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.

Disney previously held the 11 of the top 15 most streamed films back in 2021. However, the 11 films only combined for 65.971 billion minutes viewed.

Interestingly, the types of movies were move diverse. Instead of primarily animated films with the exception of Hocus Pocus 2 and Eternals, 2021 included Jungle Cruise, Black Widow, Cruella, and Avengers: Endgame.

Of note there were at least two Marvel films in the top 15 compared to just one in 2022.

2021 Top 15 Streaming Movies via Nielsen

What do you make of Iger’s comments during The Walt Disney Company’s Q1 FY 23 Earnings Results calls?

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