Disney CEO Explains Why He Believes The Marvels Fell Short At The Box Office

The newest MCU movie, The Marvels, debuted this month and had the slowest start at the box office in the history of the MCU. Disney CEO Bob Iger recently discussed the film's commercial shortcomings, saying the poor results were due, in part, to a lack of executives on set.

Speaking at the DealBook Summit in New York, Iger said the movie being filmed during the pandemic meant that "there wasn't as much supervision on the set," according to NBC News. He said normally there would be "executives" on set "looking over what's being done," but there wasn't as much of this for The Marvels.

Also during the talk, Iger said said it was a "definite mistake" to have its movie division "feed the streaming platforms," referring to Disney+. He added that Marvel's latest endeavors have "suffered greatly" due to this.

"Quality needs attention. ... It doesn't happen by accident. Quantity, in our case, diluted quality," Iger said. "I would say, right now, my No. 1 priority is to help the studio turn around creatively."

The Marvels has so far earned more than $187 million at the global box office. 2019's Captain Marvel, meanwhile, made $1.1 billion during its theatrical run.

The Marvels was released just after the SAG-AFTRA strike ended, so the film's stars were not available to promote the film in the run up to release like they normally would. Also, comparing box office numbers against the original Captain Marvel isn't perfect, complete, or fair, given the impact of the pandemic.

In any event, The Marvels is likely to go down as the worst-performing movie MCU in history across 33 films to date. Whether or not the so-called "superhero fatigue" might have factored in is unknown. But what is certain is that Marvel plans to release just one movie--Deadpool 3--in 2024.

GameSpot's The Marvels review scored the film an 7/10 and called it "meaningless fun."