Last night, The Walt Disney Company reported its first quarter earnings of 2024 on Wednesday, and Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger dropped many bombs and surprise announcements. “Moana 2” is coming later this year, “Toy Story 5” and “Frozen 3” are coming in 2026, Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” concert doc is coming to Disney+ in March, and so much more. But there’s still more to parse, particularly about one of Disney’s flagship properties in Marvel and Marvel Studios.
READ MORE: Disney Announces’ Toy Story 5,’ ‘Frozen 3,’ ‘Mandalorian & Grogu’ For 2026 & More
Last year, Iger made the infamous quote suggesting that Lucasfilm and Marvel’s TV series had “diluted focus and attention” away from the leading brand of films.
“Marvel’s a great example of that,” Iger said in a talk with CNBC’s Daniel Faber at the Sun Valley Conference last July. “They had not been in the TV business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making several television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention.
And last night, taking Q&A questions from Disney stockholders and press, the CEO seemingly doubled down on that claim and said Marvel would be leaning deeper into proven franchises and reducing its volume and output.
“I’d say we’re leaning a little bit more into sequels and franchises,” Iger said during Disney’s earnings call yesterday. “I think given the environment and given what it takes to get people out of their homes to see a film. Leaning on franchises that are familiar is actually a smart thing. In our zeal to greatly increase volume. partially tied to this [desire] to chase more global subs for our streaming platform, some of our studios lost a little focus. So, the first step that we’ve taken is that we’ve reduced volume, we reduced output, particularly in Marvel.”
There’s Iger again with the “lost focus” quote again, and it’s eye-opening for him to claim Marvel will cut back (you also gotta wonder what someone like Kevin Feige feels about this public criticism from the boss). While that seems true of 2024, with only one film in “Deadpool 3,” coming out in May, so far in 2025 and 2026, Marvel currently has four movies scheduled for each year, which isn’t dialing things back compared to what they’ve done in the past. Marvel has only released four movies in one year once, in 2021, and one of them was a Sony movie (“Spider-Man: No Way Home”), which they only produced.
Perhaps Iger means a reduction in volume on Disney+ since that was his original worry: that too much TV series output was diluting focus from the movies. To date, Marvel has only two live-action series planned for 2024, “Echo,” which has already premiered, and “Agatha: The Darkhold Diaries,” which is set for fall 2024. But they’ve already announced four animated series arriving this year, “What If…?” season three, “The Eyes of Wakanda,” “X-Men ’97,” and “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” which doesn’t sound like much of a cut-back in content, given that’s six shows in one year.
Waiting in the wings for 2025 are the retooled “Daredevil: Born Again,” the “Wonder-Man” series, and the still unreleased “Iron Heart” series, which was shot ages ago but is said to be undergoing reshoots soon.
One has to wonder if Marvel is just backed up with all this content that it has to get out but might not be announcing new shows in the future. Either way, at this rate, if there’s an actual Marvel slow-down in volume, it’s very possible audiences won’t feel the effects of it until 2026.
However, Iger only teased “Fantastic Four” and “Captain America: Brave New World” for 2025, so some are already speculating that “Thunderbolts” and “Blade,” also currently scheduled for next year, are going to get pushed back a year. If sequels and franchises are what Marvel is looking toward, one has to wonder if 2026 features films like “Doctor Strange 3,” “Shang-Chi 2,” and “Spider-Man 4.”
Here’s what Marvel’s next few years looks like:
Movies:
2024
“Deadpool 3” – July 26, 2024
2025
“Captain America: Brave New World” – February 14, 2025
“Thunderbolts” – July 25, 2025
“Fantastic Four” –May 5, 2025
“Blade” – November 7, 2025
2026
UNTITLED MARVEL – February 13, 2026
“Avengers: Kang Dynasty” – May 1, 2026
UNTITLED MARVEL – July 24, 2026
UNTITLED MARVEL – November 11, 2026
2027
“Avengers: Secret Wars” – May 7, 2027
2024 TV
“Echo” – Premiered
“Agatha: The Darkhold Diaries” – Fall 2024
“X-Men ’97” – TBD 2024 (though recently rumored for March)
“What If…?” Season 3 – TBD 2024 (Marvel teased it was “coming soon” in January.
“Eye Of Wakanda” – TBD 2024
“Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” – TBD 2024
2025 & Beyond Marvel TV
“Iron Heart” – TBD
“Daredevil: Born Again” – TBD
“Wonder Man” – TBD
“Marvel Zombies” – TBD
