Will Disney's New Movie Plan Hurt B-List Marvel Character Films?
According to the producers of the movie The Proposal, Disney is only going to focus on two kind films from now on.
The first: is "the $150 million plus blockbuster with lots of special effects and built in merchandising."
The second: is the "low budget productions."
Disney CEO Bob Iger has also expressed his idea of only making movies that have a brand name and built in audience. It sounded like he wasn't interested in developing any kind of new and original ideas.
This all comes after Disney surprisingly turned down making a sequel to The Proposal which had a very good box office run. They just aren't in to making those mid level type movies anymore.
All of Marvels A-list characters fall into the $150 million dollar plus category, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and Hulk seem to be safe, I don't think Disney will have any problem throwing any more money into them and their sequels. But what about all the B-list Marvel characters? What will happen to them?
Marvel is definitely interested in developing films for Ant Man, Doctor Strange and Iron Fist, but will Disney really give these lesser known Marvel characters a big enough budget to be brought to life? Or will these characters end up as low budget productions?
When Disney bought Marvel we heard time and time again that they were looking forward to banking on some of the 5000 characters that Marvel owns. Many of these characters are not known to the general movie going audience, so it's not like they have a huge built in market. Only hard-core comic book fans know about most of these characters. Their new plan seems to be going against everything that they set out to do with Marvel.
The new plan will hurt the chances of these characters being brought to life on the big screen. Unless they either plan on giving these films low budgets, or all these Marvel characters are an exception to the rule, and they will give these characters the budgets they need to be made into films no matter what the budget is, which is what I think is the case.
As of right now one of the biggest characters they are sitting on is Dr. Strange, I've been waiting to see a movie about him for a long time and now is the time to do it. Magic and fantasy have become a big trend in Hollywood and the audience is more excepting of it these days especially after films like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Dr. Strange could end up being an awesomely epic fantasy film and I hope Disney lets Marvel go all out on this character.
What are your thoughts on what Disney's new film plan is as it relates to Marvel?