So Bob Iger sat down and unleashed all sorts of juicy details pertaining to the future of Disney. Bob Iger touched on everything from Roseanne, to Disney World allowing alcohol, and the #MeToo movement. You can check out the entire article here but the parts that caught my attention were about the future of their films. The interviewer asked Bob Iger some pretty direct questions when it came to the future of The X-Men, James Gunn, and the Star Wars franchise.
Let’s start with the future of the X-Men:
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?
Now this makes a lot of sense. Kevin Feige was involved with the introduction of the X-Men into cinemas back when he was just an associate producer. His work on that very first X-Men film is what helped give Marvel confidence in his decision making when it came to the, now Disney, cinematic universe for the Avengers. I think this one was sort of a no-brainer that he would be taking over control of the characters and now it’s up to him to figure out how to integrate them into Disney’s plans.
The decision to fire James Gunn:
How involved do you get in decisions to cancel Roseanne at ABC or fire James Gunn at Marvel?
I would say there is a blend of my helping to make the decision to my supporting the decisions that have been made. Roseanne was completely unanimous. We discussed how it would be communicated and when because there were a number of entities that had to be properly filled in, but the decision was completely unanimous. The James Gunn decision was brought to me as a unanimous decision of a variety of executives at the studio and I supported it.
There was backlash. You still support it?
I haven’t second-guessed their decision.
Well, there’s the final nail in the coffin if any of you were holding out hope that Marvel/Disney would re-hire James Gunn. I, personally, was not and am now hoping that Marvel could instead lure someone like Guillermo Del Toro into his role.
The release schedule for Star Wars films:
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 going to 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 going to start making decisions about what comes next after J.J.’s. But I think we’re going to be a little bit more careful about volume and timing. And the buck stops here on that.
I never felt that the Star Wars films were releasing too quickly. I felt that the movies just needed to be of better quality and writing. My issues with the movies stem from them being for a completely different target audience than I fit into. These new Star Wars movies are for a new generation and I think that’s fantastic for them but I still intend to sit these movies out moving forward (still haven’t watched Solo).
I LOVE Bob Iger interviews because, unlike politicians, he doesn’t AVOID questions or pivot. All in all I’m glad this confirmation for Feige taking over the reigns of the X-Men and presumably the Fantastic Four is great news. I think the idea to slow the release of Star Wars films is also a decent idea as long as they now take the time to produce films that might be more pleasing to wider audiences. And I totally love how he doesn’t second guess the James Gunn firing. I don’t have an opinion on Gunn either way, I just like how he’s supporting his teams decision and isn’t shying away from it. That takes Hutzpah!
Now I just can’t wait to see Feige comes up with for the FF and X-Men.
[THR]
