Disney CEO Bob Iger Hints At Future Of X-MEN, STAR WARS
Bob Iger is, in many ways, the King of Hollywood. As CEO of Disney, he reigns supreme over Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, ABC, ESPN, and post-merger, everything owned by Fox. And even that description doesn’t fully cover it. It’s hard to argue that Iger hasn’t built Disney up, via buyouts and turning out mega-successful franchises, into even more of a dominating monopoly than it’s ever been.
Today, Iger has a new interview in the Hollywood Reporter that covers many of the issues currently facing Disney. He’s pretty guarded, as you'd expect, but he does give up a handful of interesting details.
On firing James Gunn (though this is likely a party line):
The James Gunn decision was brought to me as a unanimous decision of a variety of executives at the studio and I supported it. [...] I haven't second-guessed their decision.
On whether Kevin Feige’s Marvel will subsume Fox’s X-Men:
I think it only makes sense. I want to be careful here because of what's been communicated to the Fox folks, but I think they know. It only makes sense for Marvel to be supervised by one entity. There shouldn't be two Marvels. [...] Kevin's got a lot of ideas. I'm not suggesting [making Deadpool an Avenger] is one of them. But who knows?
On the relative failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story, often attributed to “Star Wars fatigue,” and where that franchise will go next:
I made the timing decision, and as I look back, I think the mistake that I made — I take the blame — was a little too much, too fast. You can expect some slowdown, but that doesn't mean we're not going to make films. J.J. [Abrams] is busy making [Episode] IX. We have creative entities, including [Game of Thrones creators David] Benioff and [D.B.] Weiss, who are developing sagas of their own, which we haven't been specific about. And we are just at the point where we're going to start making decisions about what comes next after J.J.'s. But I think we're going to be a little bit more careful about volume and timing.
And on competitors (and, unintentionally, on hubris):
I'm impressed with what has been accomplished at Netflix and Amazon. But none of them is either Disney or Marvel. Or Pixar. Or Star Wars or National Geographic or FX or Searchlight or Avatar — I could go on.
Clearly, the biggest headline here is Iger’s comment about X-Men and Marvel, which at least seems to confirm that the X-Men will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point in the future. The Last Jedi haters will likely seize upon his specifically mentioning Benioff and Weiss’ Star Wars trilogy, and not Rian Johnson’s, as some kind of confirmation of their views. But who knows? Maybe this is just Iger positioning his company's chess pieces in the public eye - it's actually surprising to see his admission of failure on Solo outside an investor call. At any rate, we’re going to get an eventful - and Disney-heavy - next few years.
The full interview is intriguing, if drenched in corporate and political PR, with Iger also discussing the Fox merger, the upcoming Disney streaming service and Star Wars theme park, and #MeToo. Check it out over at THR.
