Is Disney Abandoning Marvel and Star Wars?

There’s no denying that Marvel Studios has floundered after Avengers: Endgame. Once the Infinity Saga came to an end and multiple founding members of the Avengers left for good, it took a while for the franchise to find its footing. Throw in a world-shifting event that relegated Black Widow to a simultaneous streaming release and the MCU seemed to have everything going against it.

Since then, Marvel movies have mostly been failed experiments, from unconnected stories helmed by Oscar-winning directors to a Doctor Strange sequel that required way too much homework. While there have been some box office successes like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s clear something has to change. One way Marvel is attempting this is by going back to what works: the Russo brothers, directors of Infinity War and Endgame will direct the upcoming Avengers movies Doomsday and Secret Wars, which will feature the return of Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man himself) as Doctor Doom.

But beyond those Avengers movies, there’s not much on the horizon for the MCU that seems like a surefire hit, and that’s a problem that extends beyond Marvel Studios.

Things aren’t much better in Disney’s galaxy far away. Three new Star Wars movies were announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023, but since then, not much has happened. James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi movie looks to be the most likely to make it to production, but according to Puck News, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Rey movie lost its writer Steven Knight, meaning it might not be able to make its December 2026 release date.

It seems that Disney’s two most bankable properties are at a crossroads. And the company may be looking to other franchises to pitch it while it attempts to fix whatever went wrong with Marvel and Star Wars.

Disney made headlines on Tuesday when it quietly removed Blade from its release schedule and replaced it with Predator: Badlands, the latest movie in the long-running sci-fi horror franchise from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. At least, we thought it would be the latest. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, head of Disney subsidiary 20th Century Studios Steve Asbell revealed Trachtenberg secretly filmed a completely different additional Predator movie in secret that will be released before Badlands.

A Predator movie replacing a Marvel movie is a huge move for Disney, and this secret movie just confirms that more risks are being taken with non-Marvel properties. Asbell also confirmed that Alien: Romulus is getting a sequel with a theatrical release after its first movie was almost dropped straight to streaming but turned out to be a box office hit.

It’s all confirmation of a new approach for Disney at large, but especially Marvel: “A focus on quality,” as Bob Iger said in an earnings call in May, even if it means scaling down the number of projects produced. Gone are the days when four Marvel movies would premiere in a single year. With the delay of Blade, 2025 will see only three Marvel movies hit theaters:

1. Captain America: Brave New World (delayed from 2024)
2. Thunderbolts
3. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Is Disney’s future one that relies less on two of its biggest franchises? This isn’t necessarily a bad thing — experimentation with movies is how innovation happens. But when that experimentation only happens outside Marvel and Star Wars, what’s left becomes safe and possibly even boring. Some of Marvel’s biggest hits have come from riskier films like Guardians of the Galaxy, while the most successful Star Wars project in years is The Mandalorian, which launched as a story with no familiar characters and a faceless protagonist. Big swings like that could fall by the wayside if Disney plays it safe with its most valuable IP and only takes risks with Alien and Predator.