A common refrain from audiences is that Marvel is pumping out too many movies and shows to keep track of. There might be a reason, after all, why Thunderbolts – a good-to-great movie littered with B-tier heroes from several MCU projects – didn't spark at the box office.
James Gunn, now heading up DC Studios alongside co-CEO Peter Safran, has sympathy for Marvel Studios' bloated universe, which includes nine separate movies and shows being released in 2025 alone.
"I don’t even know if it’s really their fault," Gunn said to Rolling Stone of the situation, while revealing that one Marvel executive said "privately" that they – in the interviewer's words – 'put out too much stuff.'
When pressed about a possible direction from up-high at Disney, Gunn offered, "That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And it killed them."
Speaking to ComicBook last year, Marvel's head of streaming Brad Winderbaum confirmed there was a mandate to "create as much as we could for Disney Plus as quickly as we could."
Seemingly, that's not a mistake – or a mandate – Gunn cares to repeat.
The Superman director said, "We don’t have the mandate to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we’re going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality. We’re obviously going to do some good things and some not-so-good things, but hopefully on average everything will be as high-quality as possible." Gunn added, "Nothing goes before there’s a screenplay that I personally am happy with."
Marvel is now course correcting on its content overload, with Disney CEO Bob Iger's recent comments on quality over quantity being a surefire indicator that Marvel Studios is focusing on the cinematic experience – with Fantastic Four next up in July.
Over at DC, July's Superman will soon be followed by Peacemaker season 2, though we'll have to wait until Supergirl next year for a return to theaters.
For more, check out our guide to DCU Chapter One and how to watch the DC movies in order.
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