Earlier this week after leaving work, the only thing I wanted to do was watch the season finale of the Mandalorian. I'm a massive Star Wars fan, especially of Baby Yoda. In Disney, the company that owns Star Wars also owns one of my other favorite franchises, Marvel. I grew up loving the comics, watching the movies, and I even got a fantastic 4-Tatt too when I was younger. But lately, I feel like Star Wars and Marvel has just been overwhelming in pop culture. Baby Yoda, like, along with these things of Green Screen, but Baby Yoda is there. Yes, Baby Yoda is there. And then Spider-Man, no way home, goes on to be the biggest film of all time, makes like a gazillion dollars. It's so much fun. Look, it's been a fun time to be a nerd. But even for me, a lifelong fan, I've been wondering how much content is just too much. And I'm getting tired of it. This is a big question on the minds of Disney and its executives right now. Should they be taken that kind of fatigue seriously? Lately Disney's been experiencing some big financial hits.
They're going through layoffs. And CEO Bob Eiger recently said that the company may want to reconsider their investments in these franchises. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. It's Thursday, April 20. I'm your guest host, Arjun Singh. Today, I sit down with the Post Comic Book Culture Reporter, David Bettincourt, to ask him how much is too much Disney content.
David, can you help situate me because I feel like there is just so much content that comes out of Disney right now. It's like, what are the latest things that people are watching right now? Obviously, the Mandalorian, which just wrapped up its third season Wednesday, that starring Pedro Pescal and the lead role as Din Jaron, the Mandalorian, Mandalorians in the Star Wars universe, have been known as bounty hunters. But this series really gets more into the culture of who they are as a people in their home world. And obviously, the big hook for many for this show is Baby Yoda, who is real name is Grogu.
Watching the Mandalorians not just learning about how to fight, you also have to know how to navigate the galaxy, because you never know where you might be headed next. Ant-Man Quantamania, which introduces us to a lot of new characters, and now there's a lot of confusion if we're going to be seeing characters such as Kane the Conqueror in the future. I just think you should get to have a normal life. Dad, a guy dressed like a beach, tried to kill me in my room when I was six. I've never had a normal life.
When it comes to Disney Plus, I think what people need to understand about Disney Plus is it's a monster that constantly needs to be fed. And what they're doing right now is they found a way to expand the Star Wars universe via streaming series that is working for them. There's a whole lot of stuff that's going to spin out of the Mandalorian. We've already seen it with the Book of Boba Fett. We're going to see it with Asoka, starring Rosario Dawson, their rumors that key players and classic Star Wars characters like Thrawn, Manned Up, Showing Up. There's a lot of things going on there. But who's Thrawn? We'll have to do a totally separate show if you want me to get into who that guy is. But it's very interesting what's going on with Disney Plus right now.
When Disney first purchased Star Wars for $4 billion, the first thing everyone started screaming, wow, new movies. And then the new trilogy happened with Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver. I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy. I'll do this, Ben. Please don't go this way. No, no, you're still holding on. Let go. And it was very divisive and polarizing. And a lot of people thought that it didn't do anything new and spend too much time harking back and paying tribute to the past instead of giving them something new and shiny. The Mandalorian, on the other hand, is something very new and very shiny. And I'm not just talking about his fancy best-ghar armor that, you know, is so shiny and bright.
What we've seen now with the Star Wars IP is that it's much more valuable to Disney as a streaming asset and something to continually feed Disney Plus. Is that enough though? No, it's not. So that's where the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes in. So now Disney Plus is not only a place where Marvel Cinematic Universe movies land when their theatrical run is over, but they've also decided that they're going to get into a series game as well, whether it be Moon Knight, Miss Marvel, things like that. And it's kind of saved them from the fact that no one's really interested in them making Star Wars movies anymore.
Yeah, you also have a lot of content though, you know, it's like, I think, and I've been someone who's mostly following a lot of these series, but it's like in the last few years, and I think there's nine TV series in the Star Wars universe. Then you've got eight other series that came out from the Marvel Universe.
Like David, do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of content or do you ever feel like you're a father here, a very busy guy that you might not be able to just view all of this content and actually really understand what's going on in these worlds?
I'm probably the wrong person to ask this because I, David Betancourt or Davy Betancourt or whatever language you speak, I love this stuff. And I'll be 43 years old this year. It's born in 1980. And I am of the generation that always wanted to see this stuff and we didn't get it because Hollywood wasn't a believer in this genre, whether you call it geek culture, comic culture, whatever you want to call it. So send it all to me. It doesn't mean I'm going to like all of it, but I will consume all of it without a problem.
But I do understand there is a thought out there right now that Marvel has stretched themselves a little thin and you're starting to see that in terms of people complaining about special effects. Do you have too many projects? You know, if you're putting all your good people on what kind of forever and then Modok looks like crap in Ant-Man and Quantumania, is there a problem here? It doesn't work. It looks weird and it doesn't, it's horrible. It's terrible. It is so bad. It genuinely gives the CGI on the She-Hulk series a run for its money. That's how terrible it is.
It's just like the Avengers. An Avengers movie only works if you do it every few years. If you have an Avengers movie every single year, you're not going to have that hype in the billion dollar box office that comes from Endgame. What's happening now because we're getting streaming series from the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Disney Plus as well that are connected to it, it's almost like you don't have that disconnect that made the heart grow fonder whenever the next movie came out because the movie comes out and then like, you know, a week later, there's a streaming show.
这就像复仇者联盟一样。如果每几年推出一部复仇者联盟电影,那么它才能真正成功。如果你每年都推出一部复仇者联盟电影,那么就不会像《复仇者联盟:终局之战》那样带来数十亿美元的票房热潮。现在,我们在Disney Plus 还可以看到与漫威电影宇宙相关的流媒体系列,这使得不像电影那样观众需要等待一段时间,建立起距离感,反而近在咫尺,观众的好奇心更加得到了满足。
But if you're someone who's more of a casual fan or you've got a demand to Lauren because you were in love with the 50 year old baby known as Baby Yoda or Grogu. By the way, what do you call them, Baby Yoda? I call them Grogu now, but I had it because I'm a pro. Yeah.
But if you've been following the Mandalorian, which is now in its third season, you spent two seasons with Pedro Pascal and this adorable little alien child. They have a really emotional separation at the end of season three. He doesn't want to go with you. He wants your permission. He is strong with the force, but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the child, but he will not be safe until Master's is abilities. And if you tuned into season three, what all of a sudden Grogu is back, what happened to him? And then you find out that you actually had to watch a completely different show to find out how they reunite.
Exactly. To find out how they reunited. And I guess first David, I'm wondering how do that play out with fans and critics? I mean, were people all on board with this idea? I think hardcore fans were because if you're a hardcore fan, you're likely going to watch the book of Boba Fett. Anyway, now Boba Fett is a character who briefly had very brief appearances in the original trilogy, but let's just face it, he looked really cool. And sometimes people just point, wow, that's a cool character. I want to know more about that guy. But they like created a new TV show just about him. Yes, just about him. I mean, it makes sense based off the popularity of the character. But if you were someone who was casually watching them, if you said Mandalorian is all the Star Wars ring, I'm going to do. And you said, I'm just here for the cute green baby. And you said, I don't need any of that other Star Wars. I'm just going to pick up a season three. You would be lost because these shows in a very Marvel Cinematic Universe like Way are connected. They take place in the same timeline. And the reunion between Grogu, aka Baby Yoda and the Mandalorian took place with then Boba Fett. So if you just started and hit play on Mandalorian season three without seeing that, you would have been a little confused.
You know, let's face it, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not Star Wars, but they've made interconnected storytelling a very big deal. And Disney and Lucasfilm, they've made it clear that what they're building with the Star Wars universe when Disney plays in terms of streaming series, it's all going to be connected. So if you don't watch everything, you might miss something.
What is Disney really get from having this massive investment? Because it does sound like a bold game. It basically to say to fans hardcore and casual, you need to keep up with us because there are things that are going to happen that are going to impact the other series. What is the game for Disney from having a series of interconnected things? And is it working for them? You know, if I ever get to the point where one day I purchase something for $4 billion, I'm pretty sure I'm going to want to get the most out of that purchase as possible.
I do understand the mindset of saying, oh, this is sacred, the more you do, the less valuable it becomes, but they've got to get their money back. And they're doing it with these streaming series. I think that for now, it's a sustainable model. We don't have, you know, they're not burning pitchforks outside saying no more baby Yoda or anything like that. So that would be a dark day. Yeah. Let's hope we never get to that, you know, multivircial future or whatever that may be. But I think Marvel has a little bit more of a headache on their hand than Disney right now.
But Dave Filoni, what he did with the Clone Wars, for example, or the Clone Wars. The Clone Wars was an animated series that takes place between the prequels, episodes two and three. And who is Dave Filoni? And what is he, what role is he playing all of us?
Dave Filoni is, I think Filoni is really the Star Wars genius, if you will, the Star Wars beautiful mind. Dave Filoni can make you care about something in Star Wars that you might not have carried about before. The Clone Wars was so good as an animated series that now people look at the prequels which were once very devices a different way. And what that builds is trust. And I think that's why I think Star Wars is going to be fine right now because people are aware who's driving the ship here.
Yes, it's a business at the end of the day. You've got to create new content for people to continue to want to pay 20 bucks a month for this service. But people trust the people who are behind the wheel. After the break, we traveled to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and we explore why Disney's CEO might be getting tired of it. We'll be right back.
Marvel, the flip side of Disney's Temple franchises, I would say Marvel is struggling with the opposite problem, those movies and TV shows are incredibly interconnected with each other. And you had mentioned earlier, Ant-Man Quantumania, the newest Marvel film starting Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, it takes place right after Avengers Infinity War where Thanos played by Josh Brolin disappeared half the Marvel Universe including Ant-Man.
What was Disney's hope for this movie? It seems like it really did not live up to the hype that they were pushing for it. So if I'm Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios and I'm looking at the last 15 years of theatrical releases, one thing I can see is an individual superhero movie like an Ant-Man movie or Captain America movie, I want that to do at least half a million. And if that happens great and when I release an Avengers movie, I want that to make a billion. And so far that's pretty much tracked and in the case.
Ant-Man Quantumania, first of all, the fact that we have had three, not one, not two, but three, tres, Ant-Man movies is to me one of Marvel Studios biggest achievements because he's a character that hardly anyone cares about. I have been reading comics for most of the time that I've been on this earth, never cared about Ant-Man until the MCU and that's someone who's a heavy comic book reader.
Having said that, there was a little bit more hype behind this third Ant-Man film, Quantum ania, because of who it was introducing into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that was Kang the Conqueror, a very serious big time Avengers villain played by Jonathan Majors.
话虽如此,第三部《蚁人》电影《量子疯狂》却因它介绍了一个非常严肃的大反派——由乔纳森·梅杰斯扮演的铁甲蚁(Kang the Conqueror),引起了更多的热烈讨论和期待,因为他将被引入漫威电影宇宙中。
You're an Avenger. Have I killed you before? What? They all blew together after a while. You're not the one with the hammer. It's Thor. We can get into everything that's going with Jonathan Majors in his real life, personal life, but they basically took Ant-Man 3 and said, we're going to introduce the next major villain and show why he's such a big deal. And I thought they did a good job with that. Majors as Kang was great.
It's a character that gives him an opportunity to play a lot of different versions of himself. It's a lot of fun. But at the end of the day, it's still an Ant-Man movie.
这个角色让他有机会扮演许多不同版本的自己,非常有趣。但归根结底,这仍然是一部《蚁人》电影。
I think there was this vibe that Ant-Man Quantumania needs to make a billion dollars, but it's still an individual superhero movie. And when I say individual, I mean, it's a singular superhero movie and not an Avengers movie.
You had talked about Jonathan Majors. He has recently been steeped in a lot of controversy, though. Can you just explain what's been happening around Jonathan Majors and Marvel?
Well, first, he was cast as Kang, and Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, Peyton Reed, the director of the Ant-Man trilogy, who played a big part. I spoke to Peyton Reed in some of my reporting. He played a big part in bringing Jonathan Majors in to play Kang. He's supposed to be the next big guy. They have two Avengers movies coming out in 2025 and 2026.
Avengers The Kang Dynasty, Avengers Secret Wars. Those movies are going to be big events. If you've read the comics that are based on those movies, that those movies will be based on, you know that there's some big things about the happen.
So all of a sudden, Jonathan Majors has recently been in some legal trouble with the domestic dispute. So there hasn't been much of a response from Marvel Studios right now, but Jonathan Majors was recently arraigned in New York on several charges of assault and harassment of a woman he's reportedly in a relationship with.
Obviously, this case has yet to be resolved. You have Majors attorneys saying that he's completely innocent. And what Marvel Studios is going to have to do is let this case resolve itself and then make a decision on this is still our guy going forward or perhaps we need to go in another direction.
But it's way too soon to tell what will happen from that. You know, Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige, Peyton Reed, everyone involved with bringing Jonathan on board basically has to let this play out and make whatever they think is the best decision from there.
Yeah. And it's like the way that these things are so interconnected with Jonathan Majors, for example, if you have a problem with him in one film, you will now have to deal with several other properties that, you know, for lack of a better word could be tainted by someone's unsavory personal life or whatever has been going on. But how does Marvel fix that problem?
I mean, what does this do to the rest of their franchise and is there a way to address this without completely upending the entire franchise?
我的意思是,这对他们的整个事业体系有什么影响,是否有方法可以解决这个问题而不完全颠覆整个事业体系?
There's no one person, there's no one character, there's no one actor, even going back to Robert Downey's Iron Man that's bigger than the machine. The vast vault of comics that inspire the Marvel Cinematic Universe is so grand and so inspirational and filled with so many incredible stories. What would be the most dramatic thing to happen with the Jonathan Majors stuff right now? That'd be recast? They'd done that before.
They didn't win Terence Howard initially played Rody War Machine, basically the right hand man to Iron Man, and then he was played by Don Cheetle. So this is all stuff that Marvel Studios has been through before.
Now obviously Rody wasn't the big bad guy. He was a supporting character. This is a little bit more out in the open because it's involving someone who would be the big bad villain that all of your future movies over the next five years are built around. Having said that before, it's still a road Marvel Studios has walked before.
Does it seem like there's a fatigue from fans, casual or hardcore? Like I know that Bob Eiger, the new CEO of Disney, he's been making comments about how the company should reel back from Marvel and Star Wars. I guess I'm wondering why what would inspire the CEO of Disney to kind of start saying that we should rethink these things?
看起来球迷们(无论是入门级还是迷控级)似乎感到了疲劳?就像我知道迪士尼新CEO Bob Eiger一直在发表评论,说公司应该收缩漫威和星战。我想知道的是,是什么启发了迪士尼CEO开始说我们应该重新思考这些事情?
Is viewership going down? Is there a cause for concern for how these franchises are going?
收视率会下降吗?这些特许经营品牌的状况令人担忧吗?
I think Bob Eiger had a good point in terms. I think he's saying a lot of repetitiveness. I think he looks at these characters and is maybe saying, does every single one of our superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe need three movies? Does everyone need a trilogy? Is that the card that gets stamped for you to become an official Avenger that you have three individual movies?
Maybe that's not, especially in the era of Disney Plus where you also have now serialized shows being created that are connected to this universe as well. In the case of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I think what they may be suffering from right now is maybe there's too much content.
Maybe what they've reached is a cap of new people coming in. Maybe now new people are coming in and saying, well, if I have to start at Iron Man in 2008 and get all the way up to here, that's a lot.
Maybe what could be happening is the audience isn't growing as much because you're walking into something that's a story that's been taking place over the last 15 years. Okay, but David, let's zoom out. Look at the long view of all of this. What is Disney's endgame? What is Disney's vision for all this? Where do they go from here?
Well, we now know that when it comes to Star Wars, they want it to be a combination of streaming and they really want to get back in the theaters. There's a theatrical plan as long as continuing streaming on Disney Plus. When it comes to Marvel, that's where I think you're going to have to start maybe going back to the drawing board a little bit. The formula is still the same right now. Individual Marvel superhero movie eventually leads to an Avengers team up. This will be multiple times that we've seen that formula now.
There seems to possibly be getting to a point where we're saying, do we need to see something else? We've heard Bob Iger say maybe not so much expansion within franchises and more new characters popping up. It's something that they might have to consider, especially with DC Studios and James Gunn on the rise. But even with all of these interconnected stories, things like having to watch Book of Boba Fett to get a key plot point, that's still resonating with fans. It's still working for them. It is for the dedicated hardcore fans who would be a part of this no matter what.
When I say that, I mean, a fan that's going to press play and stream regardless of what a critic says, they're just going to dive in for that particular section of fans. Yes, things are fine. But if you're looking to stir things a little bit up for the general public person that may or may not be interested in Marvel or maybe leaning on what that movie critic says, then maybe you need to start coming up with a few more new ideas. What about other different things that people want to make?
I am thinking about Andorr, which Tony Gilroy, the creator, has before said, is not a Star Wars fan. I guess I just wonder, well, if you're not a Star Wars fan, why not just create a cool sci-fi, spy thriller, and then I wonder, was that option even on the table?
What do you think? First of all, I think it's hilarious that someone that doesn't like Star Wars made the best Star Wars thing out there. That's just very, I guess you would call that the force, but it's very funny. There is room within this genre to take an unorthodox approach. We've seen that with Andorr. We've really seen it with what James Gunn did with Guardians of the Galaxy in terms of making those films just as much about music, then about superpowers and superheroes, and deep space and all that things.
There is sort of a template that needs to be followed to keep the wheels churning. But there is room for people like Tony Gilroy to come in and say, let me take these characters and maybe do something a little different. And maybe that means using, obviously, you're probably not going to do that with Superman or Batman. You just have to find the right character to where you can play like that. Because if you take Superman and say, oh, well, I want Clark Kent to be a sports reporter, people are going to scream and say, no, that's not how it is in the comics. You have to find a character that people don't care if you take that kind of chance.
Look, if anyone at DC's listening, if Clark Kent wants to be a podcaster, I would personally have no problem with it over my dead body. You and I were talking about this, we're two old men who still very love Michael Keaton as Batman. The only Batman. The only Batman exactly. But I want to kind of end this conversation by talking about the future.
These franchises have been such a part of our culture for generations. You have kids, David, you teach college kids. Do you see these franchises having sticking power with the future, young people and up and coming people? Do you think that they're going to be able to enjoy these franchises the way someone like you has?
I think so. One thing about the younger kids, 20 and younger that consume this stuff, the difference between them and our age group is they're not really reading the comics. We grew up without cinematic universes being connected together and lasting for 15 years. That's all they know. So they're just consuming it from, oh, this is this cool movie and cool Disney Plus show that's always been around.
Whereas maybe not you, but me, I'm saying we're consuming it in a different way. The kids think it's very cool that this stuff is here, but I love the perspective they have of not being bound because I teach a course at the University of Maryland on comic book culture and how to cover it in media. And the thing that I'm most amazed by is a part of that class, I'm teaching them about the comics that inspire this stuff. Nothing about the comics, but know everything about what has been adapted from them in terms of movies, streaming, whatever the case may be. So I think that younger generation is kind of just saying, you know, this is cool. I'ma watch it while we're kind of like looking to be a little more opinionated and have a little more skin in the game because we've read everything that inspired what all this stuff is.
One, it sounds like from what you're saying, they're unafraid of jumping into something, even if they don't have all of the context. Absolutely. Back to what I was bringing up earlier. Maybe that's not even really a problem with people at all. And maybe the lesson is that you should just jump in and see if you like it. At the end of the day, the great thing about this society is, you know, if you don't like it, you don't have to watch it. If you don't want to read it, you don't have to read it.
But we're very much at a point where somebody doesn't like something and they want to scream about it. And that's fine. I envy the kids that watch this stuff because they don't know what's going to happen. You know, guys are age. They're watching these movies and there's always some plot point somewhere from the comics that we know we're going to stick in. I would love to have the perspective of, you know, watching this stuff and not know what's going to go on. I think that's the big advantage the kids have in terms of their enjoyment factor of this because they're just diving in blind.
Well, David, it's always a pleasure to get to talk to you about this. I hope that you enjoy the next, everything that's coming out from Marv. I have to watch it either way. Yeah.
Well, thanks for being on the show with us today. David Bettencourt reports on comic book culture for the post. That's it for post reports. Thanks for listening.
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