Disney plans to spend at least $5 billion in the UK and continental Europe over the next five years producing blockbuster films and television series, its European boss said, with the success of the film Deadpool and Wolverine shows that there is still life in the superhero genre.
Last summer, analysts and media executives declared the end of superhero franchises after films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania struggled to recoup its costs, with critics accusing Marvel’s many spin-offs of severe lack of originality.
A year later, the third installment in Marvel’s satirical Deadpool series is a box office hit for parent company Disney, which is committed to further investments in Europe to generate future success.
“(The genre) still seems to have a lot of life,” said Jan Koeppen, Disney’s president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, about the success of Deadpool and Wolverine. Produced at Britain’s Pinewood Studios, the film grossed nearly $900 million at the box office in its third weekend, making it the highest-grossing opening for an R-rated film of all time.
In the meantime, Inside Out 2 – released earlier this year – has become the highest-grossing animated film of all time with worldwide sales of over $1.5 billion, boosting Disney’s revenues after a series of box office flops.
“We feel like we’re back on track for success with films, which is fantastic. I’m confident that people will go to the cinema again and, above all, enjoy our films,” said Koeppen.
Koeppen is responsible for films, television, the Disney+ streaming platform and licensing in more than 130 markets. In offices in London’s Hammersmith, which feature life-size versions of Disney characters – including a model of the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit – he said the UK and continental Europe would be a key driver for the US studio’s future production.
Disney uses Pinewood for many of its biggest films and has spent around $3.5 billion on production in the UK over the past five years. All nine films in the Skywalker saga were shot in the UK (Andorlast year’s Star Wars spin-off used London’s Barbican as the setting for a planet in the distant future).
Now, according to Koeppen, the company will invest around one billion dollars annually in the UK and continental Europe over the next five years for films, Disney+, National Geographic and other TV productions.
Four films are already in the final stages or scheduled for production at Pinewood. Work on Snow Whitefollowed by The Fantastic Four: First Steps, The roses And The amateur, with Rami Malek in the lead role. A new Star Wars film is also planned.
“We are probably one of the fastest growing media companies in (Europe, the Middle East and Africa),” Koeppen said. “That has been the case for the last few years and … we have a lot more growth ahead of us.”
Key to Disney’s plan is its continued focus on driving subscriptions to Disney+, which launched in Europe four years ago, with media analysts seeing the platform as one of the more likely winners in an increasingly crowded market.
Disney+ is the third-largest streaming subscription service in the U.S., Australia, the U.K., Germany, Spain and France, according to Kantar, which separately rates Disney-owned services Hulu and ESPN+. Together, Disney’s three streaming services reported their first quarterly profit on Wednesday, earlier than the company had forecast.
“We are young. We are constantly thinking about how we can develop and improve it,” said Koeppen.
More than half of subscribers worldwide are adults without children, he said. The bear and Japanese historical drama Shogun have been outstanding TV hits recently, while older shows like The The Simpsons and medical drama Grey’s Anatomy have proven to be a great attraction for new customers.
The latter, he said, shows how important high-quality older content still is. A typical European viewer of Grey’s Anatomy watched the show for more than 120 hours, he said, suggesting there is a loyal audience for a series that first aired 20 years ago. “It’s still very much alive and active.”
Disney faces stiff competition from streaming rivals such as Warner Bros Discovery’s Max and Paramount+, as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime, but Koeppen said the company has an advantage in producing its own content. “We’ve always had great content, and that’s what’s really going to help us win in the end,” he said.
Disney has used its streaming service as a place to premiere its films in the past, but Koeppen said, “After the pandemic, the films went to the cinema first.” He hopes that films like the next Aliens installment and Mufasa – The Lion King will be success stories this year.
Disney is also commissioning local production companies across Europe to produce shows. Next up in the UK is a TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s novel Rivalswhile Koeppen is convinced of the success of another adaptation — The Lions of Sicily – in Italy. The German-born, Brussels-educated executive said Disney watched how each of these shows fared in different markets before deciding where to offer them around the world.
Disney brands are also used in other parts of the entertainment market, in theaters stage versions of The Lion King in Europe and plans for a stage musical by Hercules is being developed.
Koeppen said European markets such as Spain were centres for talent in television and film production due to tax benefits and investment in infrastructure. He compared this to countries such as France, which introduced quotas for local production.
The French system, which dictates how many films must be produced domestically and when films can be shown, is “uniquely complicated and complex … it limits competition and it limits consumer choice,” he said. “Normally, we want to present our content to customers in the way that they can best enjoy it.”
Koeppen said Disney is working with authorities in France to see if the system “could be modernized … we will work with the various parties to see if that is possible.”
Disney is also investing in other areas of its European business, spending €2 billion on the expansion of Disneyland Paris. The theme park will be about twice as large when completed.
The US media group is also one of the largest cruise ship builders in Europe. So far, five ships have been built in Germany and Italy, and four more are planned. These themed ships will head to destinations in the USA, the Caribbean and Asia. “The people who go on Disney cruises are absolutely thrilled with them,” said Koeppen.
