How Does Disney Get The Most Out Of Its IP Without Spoiling Its Value?
When Disney+ first launched back in 2019, it looked like a juggernaut in waiting.
With an enormous collection of intellectual property ranging from traditional Disney animation and shows, to Pixar titles, Marvel and Star Wars (among others like the Simpsons brought in by the 21st Century Fox acquisition), the streaming service appeared to have a major advantage over its competition right off the bat. That advantage seemed to grow once the pandemic halted TV and movie production, and audiences flocked to familiar franchises on streaming services. Since then, however, there’s been a shift.
To be clear, Disney remains well-situated on streaming, reporting over 200 million global subscribers across all streaming services during its most recent earnings, with Disney+ alone claiming nearly 138 million. Yet, Wall Street has appeared to turn away from streaming, and Disney CEO Bob Chapek continues to come under fire for various missteps since taking over for Bob Iger.
Over on NextTV, my colleague David Bloom discusses one potential fix for what ails Disney: Selling the increasingly redundant Hulu. While that could help the bottom line, another issue may be developing for Disney around its most valuable content — there might just be too much of it.
For as much as storytelling has been key for what’s made Disney’s IP holdings so valuable, scarcity has played a crucial role as well. Across Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars, movies were events and spectacles, the likes of which were anticipated and celebrated by fans. They felt unique because they were unique. And of course, it helped that there was an inherent quality you could sense behind the films, even if releases naturally varied in popularity.
The newfound pressures of streaming, and a desire to churn out more content for more people, though, has changed that approach completely. Star Wars averaged about a movie per year from 2015-19 (after just six films total from 1977-2005) and has spent the last two years going all-in on a multitude of limited series on Disney+. Marvel, meanwhile, was averaging about three movies per year, but has since transitioned to three-to-four movies plus another four-to-five series per year.
Pixar has seen a slight increase from one movie per year to two, though direct releases on streaming have removed at least aspects of the typical fanfare. As mentioned earlier, these movies were events fueled by a mix of quality and scarcity. Now, if those movies are everywhere at any time (as titles are even included on-demand within a few months of theatrical releases), where exactly does the “event” occur? And without the perception that every movie or show is a Super Bowl-level event, as was previously the case, will Disney see diminishing returns over time?
Even as a fan of Marvel myself, it’s easy to see how we’re already getting there. Marvel Studios has become a year-round content mill across movies and streaming, and the quality in the Disney+ era hasn’t necessarily lived up to what made it so successful beforehand. Like many other Marvel fans, I’ve tuned into every show and movie of late. But more often than not, I’ve felt there’s a lack of importance around recent stories… a problem that rarely came up before the streaming shows. That’s a major issue when a good deal of the Disney+ subscriber retention strategy hinges on keeping Marvel audiences around.
Disney’s been down the road of content overkill pretty recently with Star Wars, and there’s a chance they’ve learned from fan criticism and abrupt scaling back on that side of the house. Obviously you don’t purchase Lucasfilm or Marvel to have the valuable IP of either just sit on a shelf. But if your supply outpaces demand and starts to lack in quality, you do start eating into the value of those studios to your business in both the long- and short-term.
With video games, comic books, toys and more, fans don’t lack for options to engage with Disney brands year-round as it is. I’m not advocating for the company to abandon content revolving around Marvel and Star Wars. The way forward, though, might mean fewer IP-driven series with an emphasis on quality, PLUS a better utilization of Hulu’s resources to churn out new shows for both existing and new Disney audiences.
As we’ve seen with Netflix, volume isn’t necessarily the winning strategy for streaming services, and it’s a lesson all competitors should learn quickly (HBO Max never bothered down that road to begin with and seems well-situated as a result). Without utilizing too much hyperbole here, Disney’s desire to flood the market with popular IP could have lasting effects on how popular or valuable that IP is. There’s still time to fix that approach. They just need a viable plan B in its place as well.
