Moving forward, Disney will try to make fewer, cheaper movies while “focus[ing] on improving the quality of our films,” Bob Iger promised analysts on a recent earnings call. While Iger has made promises to Wall Street about this before, it’s an issue that has raised alarm bells over the course of the summer as a slew of Hollywood tentpoles have failed to become profit-gushing blockbusters, in part due to their exorbitant budgets.
The likes of “Fast X,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” ended up costing so much above the norm — at least in relation to their likely theatrical revenue — that they may not make money (or produce sequels) even with objectively decent box office.