Despite Declining Viewership And Box Office Losses Marvel Studios Rumored To Make Agatha Harkness Gay In Disney+ Series
John F. Trent
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As Marvel Studios faces declining viewership on Disney+ and mounting box office losses, the company will double down on culture war issues with the upcoming Agatha: Coven of Chaos series making Agatha Harkness gay.
Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness in Marvel Studios’ WANDAVISION exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
This latest rumor comes from scooper CanWeGetSomeToast who shared to TikTok, “Agatha Harkness is a BIcon!!! All those moments with Wanda make a lot more sense…”
In the video, what appears to be an AI generated voiceover states, “For those who missed the clues in Agatha: Coven of Chaos it will be revealed that Agatha is a bisexual queen.”
@canwegetsometoast3 Agatha Harkness is a BIcon!!! 😭🏳️🌈 🩷💜💙 All those moments with Wanda make a lot more sense…. #fyp #foryou #AgathaHarkness #AgathaCovenOfChaos #WandaVision #ScarletWitch #WandaMaximoff #WandaEdit #ScarletWitchEdit #MarvelLeaks #MarvelRumours #MyTimeToShineHello #CanWeGetSomeToast #marvelstudios #ElizabethOlsen #KathrynHahn #AubreyPlaza #Bi #BiCon #LGBTQ ♬ original sound – CanWeGetSomeToast
This new rumor comes after The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger bluntly stated that the company was trying to avoid culture war issues.
In an interview with CNBC’s David Faber, Iger was asked about how he would respond to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ accusations that the Walt Disney Company is sexualizing children and has become a woke corporation.
As part of his answer he said, “The other issues that you referenced, the last thing that I want for the company is for the company to be drawn into any culture wars. You know, we’ve operated for almost 100 years as a company making product that we actually are proud of in terms of its impact on the world. I joke every once in a while we’re there to manufacture fun—”
The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger via CNBC
Iger would later reiterate, “I don’t really want to engage in the specifics except to say that it’s it’s not our goal to be involved in a culture war. Our goal is to continue to tell wonderful stories and have a positive, positive impact on the world. You know, we are a preeminent entertainer in the world. And we’re proud of our track record there. The notion that Disney is in any way sexualizing children quite frankly is preposterous and inaccurate.”
If this rumor is indeed true, it’s just another piece of evidence that shows Bob Iger was clearly not serious about trying to keep the company out of culture war issues.
(L-R): Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff and Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness in Marvel Studios’ WANDAVISION exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
On top of Iger claiming he was trying to position the company away from culture war issues, Marvel Studios has seen its viewership on Disney+ significantly decline with the release of Secret Invasion that pushes radical feminism to such an extent that Nick Fury and Talos are shown to be incompetent players that pushed the world to a nuclear disaster.
In order to stop this from ever happening again, two women, Emilia Clarke’s G’iah and Olivia Colman’s Sonya Falsworth create a partnership. This partnership comes after G’iah inherits seemingly all of the abilities of every single Marvel Cinematic Universe character known to exist. She also killed the male character who had inherited those same abilities.
Emilia Clarke as G’iah in Marvel Studios’ SECRET INVASION, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Gareth Gatrell. © 2023 MARVEL.
The series has the second worst viewership of any Marvel Studios production on Disney+. The only one with worst viewership is Ms. Marvel.
It also has extremely poor ratings with a 54% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes. The final episode even has an abysmal 7% Tomatometer score from critics.
Secret Invasion Episode 6 Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer Score
RELATED: ‘Secret Invasion’ Premiere Viewership Fails To Break Into Nielsen’s Top 10 Streaming Programs
Not only is the most recent offering on Disney+ seeing viewership tank and audience’s react negatively, but one of the most recent theatrical releases, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania saw Marvel Studios lose money.
The film only grossed $214.5 million domestically and another $249.1 million internationally for a global gross of $463.6 million. However, the film has an estimated production budget of $200 million, which means the film’s break even point was at minimum $500 million, but could be as high as $600 million.
On the conservative end that means Marvel Studios lost nearly $22 million on the film.
Jonathan Majors as Kang The Conqueror in Marvel Studios’ ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2022 MARVEL.
Despite these clear indicators that their embrace of identity politics and sociopolitical messaging are a failing business strategy, it’s unlikely the company will change and this latest rumor if true appears to be evidence of that.
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige intimated back in January during an appearance on The Movie Business podcast that the company would have to figure out how to entertain better so they could propagandize audiences better with their messaging.
Feige said, “Frank Capra has a quote that our co-president Louis D’Esposito quotes often, which is — basically to distill down to: entertain first. You can have as many beautiful messages, and beautiful life theories, and beautiful thematics that you want to put into the world that all of us do, and all of our filmmakers do, but if you’re not entertaining first it will fall on deaf ears.”
“I think that’s always been the way,” Feige added. “Thankfully, you’re making the kind of movies that you love to see that also goes into entertaining yourself, which is what we also try to do here at Marvel Studios.”
Dominique Thorne and Kevin Feige attend the Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania World Premiere at the Regency Village Theatre on Monday, February 6, 2023 in Westwood, CA.
(Photo:Alex J. Berliner/ABImages)
A recent rumor from WDW Pro based on a number of Disney insiders detailed that the culture at The Walt Disney Company is preventing them from seeing what is right in front of them.
WDW Pro summarized, “Over and over and over we get asked on this channel, ‘But why, Pro? Why is Disney doing this? Why don’t they change? What is it going to take?’ And it seems to me that we’ve got the reasons now sort of given to us: 1. They can’t have open, free discourse inside the company. Employees are afraid to say what’s really going on because they could face real consequences. So then they don’t say what’s really going on with it.”
He continued, “You’ve got a company that also think that they’re impervious to the boycott, perhaps, because it so inconvenient to boycott them. And then you’ve got the situation with Disney where they also believe — truly at the top — they believe in this stuff at a fundamental quasi-religious level or at least a political level.”
What do you make of this latest rumor about Agatha: Coven of Chaos?
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