Lucasfilm
Disney won’t use The Force as much moving forward.
Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger just talked to The Hollywood Reporter about everything in his vast world — which includes ABC (so they talked “Roseanne”), Marvel (so they talked James Gunn), Lucasfilm (so they talked “Star Wars”), and the newly acquired 21st Century Fox (so they talked “X-Men”).
Comic book fans don’t normally pay close attention to corporate acquisitions, but now that Marvel Studios and Fox’s Marvel properties are in the same family, that means potential X-Men/Deadpool/Fantastic Four crossovers with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Avengers.
Marvel Studios
THR asked Iger about that, and got confirmation that Marvel Studios/MCU boss Kevin Feige is going to run the whole combined Marvel show:
How is Marvel going to absorb Fox’s X-Men franchise? Is Kevin Feige going to oversee everything?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.So Deadpool could become an Avenger?Kevin’s got a lot of ideas. I’m not suggesting that’s one of them. But who knows?
20th Century Fox
In Feige We Trust.
On to “Star Wars.” The “Star Wars” franchise is hardly in trouble, but the excitement of the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” awakening the galaxy has already led to some fatigue and frustration. The disappointing box office of “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was blamed, in part, on just too many Star Wars movies coming out on top of each other.THR asked Iger about that:
Many believe Disney should pump the breaks and not put out a Star Wars movie each year.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 gonna 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 gonna start making decisions about what comes next after J.J.’s. But I think we’re gonna be a little bit more careful about volume and timing. And the buck stops here on that.
“More careful about volume and timing.” So fewer films, and those films will have more breathing room between them to build anticipation. Not sure what that might mean for upcoming standalone films after “Rogue One” and “Solo,” but it doesn’t sound that promising.
Lucasfilm
Iger also talked a bit about Disney’s upcoming streaming service, which is expected to launch in late 2019. There’s a lot to chew on in Iger’s THR Q&A, and since Disney pretty much touches every aspect of the pop culture univese, he has a lot of say in what we watch and when — and where — we get to watch it.Want more stuff like this? Like us on Facebook.
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