Disney CEO Bob Iger told an investor conference that his company is looking closely at all aspects of its content businessin both film and television, as he charts the best path forward in a market environment with linear television in decline, the uncertain future of theatrical theaters, and the growing but profitable streaming business.
Turn Disney into the new HBO
Speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference, Iger says that Disney is going to look at detail in the future. how much you are spending on content and how many projects you produce:
“I’m very pleased that the support I’m getting from the company’s content creators is meaningful and real, and it comes in the form of reducing spend for content, whether it’s a TV series or a movie, where the costs they have skyrocketed in a huge way and not in a bearable way, in my opinion. Everyone agrees with that. It is about understanding how much volume we need, reducing how much we produce. See how much we spend on what we do and how much we earn.”
Within this strategy, Iger leaves open the possibility of create content that the company could sell on other platforms beyond Disney+. But Marvel, Star Wars and properties like ‘Frozen’ would remain exclusive
“And as we look to scale back the content we’re creating for our own platforms, there will likely be opportunities to license it to third parties. For a while, that was prohibited or something we couldn’t do, but if we get to a point where we don’t need as much and we have capacity, why not use it to increase revenue? Disney is very strong, without a doubt the most powerful brand in family entertainment, when you see live action ‘The Little Mermaid’ you will be reminded how strong the brand is”.
But the most delicate part of their talk were the strong comments about Marvel and Star Wars, which suggests a new approach for those brands:
“What we have to look at in Marvel is not necessarily the volume of the storytelling, but how many times we go back to the well on certain characters. Sequels usually work well, but do you need a third or fourth, for example? Or is it time to turn to other characters? There’s nothing inherently out of place in terms of the Marvel brand. I think we just have to see what characters and stories we’re drawing from. In the next five years, you’re going to see a lot of new, we’re going back to the Avengers, but with a whole different set of members, for example.”
Regarding Star Wars, he praised the box office of the films in the saga, the successors to the first six by George Lucas, but recalled the fiasco of the independent installments:
“‘Rogue One’ did pretty well, ‘Han Solo’ let us down a bit. It made us stop to think that maybe the cadence was too aggressive. So we decided to pick up cable. We’re still developing Star Wars movies, but we We’ll make sure that when we do one, it’s the right one, so we’re being very careful with this.”
Iger said Disney’s goal now is to focus on high-quality programming, both in franchises and on the FX channel, whose content he praised. but he expressed the desire to turn Disney into some kind of new HBO:
“There are just too many choices for the consumer right now, and it comes down to, What makes the difference? Yes, we’ve got Star Wars, Marvel, Disney, and Pixar, for example, but quality makes the cut, too. I think HBO showed that well, you know, in the halcyon days when high-quality programming made a big difference, not volume. And because streaming platforms require so much volume, one has to wonder if that’s the right direction to go, or if you can curate your content more, be more picky about what you’re doing, and focus on quality and not the volume”.