by Ray Keating
Analysis
DisneyBizJournal.com
October 17, 2023
Producing a quality product while keeping costs under control is good news in free enterprise, with owners/shareholders and customers both being quite pleased. At the opposite end, seemingly out-of-control costs combined with eroding quality spells trouble.
When it comes to movies and streaming shows in recent years, with a few welcome exceptions, the general trend for Disney has been poor-to-middling quality combined with sky-high costs, or at best, pretty good productions saddled with insurmountable costs. That’s part of the reason we heard recently that the company was going about slashing costs.
Of course, though, the point is to reduce costs while enhancing quality. We see this across industries, with assorted innovations and efficiencies creating products of greater value in the market, while at the same time costs are reduced and productivity is enhanced. Hollywood, however, is an industry that often seems to struggle with this. Or at least it does for a time, but eventually the market doles out punishments via the wrath of shareholders, consumers, or both.
Much of Hollywood, including Disney, seems to be at this juncture, and it’s going to be interesting to see what players survive, emerge and how the industry might be altered.
For Disney, an interesting test case is Daredevil.
The Marvel show, of course, first ran on Netflix for three seasons. And if it wasn’t the best superhero show ever made, well, it’s in the top two (and I really can’t think of what might come in ahead of it).
So, in the midst of this struggle over costs and quality, Disney is bringing Daredevil, starring Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, back on Disney+ with an impressive 18-episode run. But with production under way, news came in late September that Marvel/Disney basically stepped in to more or less clean house, except for Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin and apparently John Bernthal’s Punisher. Writers? Gone. Directors? Gone.
Not knowing what was going on, the reasons for these actions amount to speculation. However, we can plug these decisions in with what else has gone on and is going on with Disney. Again, those challenges in terms of costs and quality.
Given the rather unimpressive run Marvel has had on Disney+ except for Loki, and keeping in mind the value of Daredevil, the hope – from a fan and a shareholder perspective – is that Disney/Marvel took a close look at what was being produced in this new Daredevil season, and was not pleased.
That seems to be backed up by a recent Hollywood Reporter story, which included the following:
• “Fewer than half of the series’ 18 episodes had been shot, but it was enough for Marvel executives, including chief Kevin Feige, to review the footage and come away with a clear-eyed assessment: The show wasn’t working.”
• The problem? “The show is Marvel’s first to feature a hero who already had a successful series on Netflix, running three seasons. But sources say that Corman and Ord crafted a legal procedural that did not resemble the Netflix version, known for its action and violence. Cox didn’t even show up in costume until the fourth episode. Marvel, after greenlighting the concept, found itself needing to rethink the original intention of the show.”
The Hollywood Reporter went on to note what a mess most Marvel streaming shows have been behind the scenes – in part due to a Marvel movie process that hasn’t served the company well in terms of its movies of late, whereby the movie or show is filmed, and then “fixes” are made post-primary filming. If that’s the new Marvel Way, it was destined to come crashing down. The new process? It’s reported, “Showrunners will write pilots and show bibles. The days of Marvel shooting an entire series, from She-Hulk to Secret Invasion, then looking at what’s working and what’s not, are done.”
Also, Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation, was quoted: “It comes down to, ‘How can we tell stories in television that honor what’s so great about the source material?’”
Now, there’s a crazy thought. But honoring the source material runs much deeper than what Marvel has been doing post-Avengers: Endgame. Will that truly be fixed? We’ll see.
And as a fan and shareholder, they better not screw up Daredevil. Oh yeah, and bring back Foggy Nelson and Karen Page (I really shouldn’t have to remind you people of such things.)
__________
Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com; and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries, the Alliance of Saint Michael novels, and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right? (Keating is a Disney shareholder.)
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