Sony’s Tom Rothman Addresses Marvel’s Rough Patch, But Says AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Will Hit Big
The Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t exactly been on cruise control lately. Box office numbers have cooled, fan excitement isn’t what it was during the Infinity Saga, and even the most loyal MCU defenders have had to admit things feel… different.
Now, Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman is weighing in on what went wrong and why he thinks Marvel is about to get its groove back with Avengers: Doomsday.
Rothman recently joined Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw and The Town’s Matt Belloni at the American Film Institute to talk about the future of the Spider-Man franchise and the state of the film industry. Naturally, the conversation turned to Marvel’s recent slump.
When asked what caused the downturn, Rothman didn’t dance around it. He pointed to one major issue: too much Marvel, too fast.
“You got to make the audience miss you,” the Sony CEO added. “You know, it’s the old thing… Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
He isn’t wrong. When Marvel was releasing two or three films a year, each one felt like an event. Then Disney+ entered the picture and suddenly keeping up with the MCU became homework.
Multiple shows, multiple films, all deeply interconnected. If you skipped something, you felt like you were walking into the next movie halfway through.
Rothman argues that “scarcity” is key to maintaining audience investment and even suggested that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige would agree with him.
Or maybe they just need to make better movies with stronger stories. If they actually made quality films the fans would show up, but they had a run there of poorly written and produced movies.
Coming from Rothman, whose tenure includes several less-than-stellar Spider-Man installments, the lecture hits a bit sideways. This is the same studio system that delivered some head-scratching creative choices over the years. So while he’s right about overexposure, quality is still king.
That said, Rothman made it clear he’s not betting against Feige. In fact, he said there are only two people in Hollywood he wouldn’t wager against. Feige is one of them. The other is James Cameron, the director behind Avatar.
“He knows what he’s doing, certainly they’ve engaged you can see it in a course correction, less television. I think it was really the television and the elaborateness of that interconnection that made you have to be so inside, you know, or else you felt excluded.”
That interconnectivity used to be the MCU’s greatest strength. Every post-credit scene mattered. Every cameo meant something. But when the web gets too tangled, casual audiences check out. Not everyone wants to study a viewing order chart before buying a movie ticket.
Rothman also made it clear that he doesn’t think Feige personally fumbled the strategy. According to him, the content surge was driven by Disney leadership under former CEO Bob Chapek.
“And he’s a good corporate soldier. So he did what he was asked to do,” Rothman elaborated. He then pointed to Marvel having scaled back on its content output in recent years, saying, “But I think he knows very well that now to a degree less will be more and it’ll be very more. Have no worries for Avengers [Doomsday], guys.”
Marvel has already started pulling back, trimming its Disney+ slate and slowing theatrical releases. The upcoming Avengers: Doomsday is clearly being positioned as the next major turning point, much like The Avengers and Infinity War were in their eras.
If Rothman is right, and if Feige really has recalibrated the machine, then Avengers: Doomsday could be the start of a reset the MCU desperately needs. But if it stumbles, the conversation about superhero fatigue is going to get a lot louder.
For now, Rothman says don’t worry. Marvel’s playing the long game again.