Disney cracking down on Marvel’s Phase 5 output and beyond

polygon.com:

“Phase 5” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicks off this week with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, on the heels of a total blur of a Phase 4. In the wake of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and his MCU creative team unleashed a relentless stream of Marvel storytelling to fill both theaters and Disney Plus. But a new report, combined with comments from Disney CEO Bob Iger, suggests the all-consuming Marvel strategy may be dialed down in the months and years to come, even with an already-announced Marvel release schedule out in the world.

“We think we have an opportunity to, through more aggressive curation, to reduce some of our costs in the general entertainment side and in general, in volume,” Iger said in a Feb. 8 Disney earnings call. Later on in the same presentation, he specifically called out Marvel (along with Pixar and Lucasfilm), stressing to investors that “we have to be better at curating” the brands’ output and “reduce costs on everything that we make because while we are extremely proud of what’s on the screen, it’s gotten to a point where it’s extraordinarily expensive. And we want all the quality. We want the quality on the screen, but we have to look at what they cost us.”

Quoting an insider privy to Disney’s internal planning, a report from The Hollywood Reporter suggests the changes will be a “massive correction” from how Marvel has been operating in the last few years, which seen a massive amount of content pouring in from every direction. In terms of Marvel’s interconnected universe, Phase 4 saw the release of Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on