Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s Head of Streaming Television and Animation, claimed that the reason Marvel’s Disney+ shows typically do not receive second seasons is because the casts costs are too high.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Winderbaum revealed why a number of Disney+ shows such as Wandavision, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, and others did not get second seasons.
He said, “Producing shows with marquee names, it made it really challenging to produce second seasons; the margins on TV are smaller.”
Winderbaum’s comment comes in the wake of Jeremy Renner revealing he turned down a second season of Hawkeye because Disney did not want to pay him the same rate as the first season. In fact, he revealed they tried to cut his pay in half
He said, “They asked me to do a season 2 and they offered me half the money.”
“And I’m like, ‘Wow!’ It’s going to take me twice the amount of work for half the amount of money. And so eight months of my time essentially. And I have to do it for half. I’m like, ‘I’m sorry. Why because you think I’m only half the Jeremy because I got ran over? Maybe that’s why you want to pay me half of what I made on the first season?’
“And this is not Marvel. This is just like Disney. Not even really Disney,” Renner said. “It’s just the penny pinchers. The accountants. I told them to go fly a kite. I mean just at the insult offer. So we didn’t see eye to eye on that.”
“And sadly, I still love the character,” he continued. “I’d still love to do it, but I had to defend myself. I didn’t ask for any more money, mind you. Just pay me what I made the first season. So it’s a little disheartening that that didn’t happen. But that’s fine. I’m happy to let that go because my body’s probably thanking me time and time again that I’m not doing it right now. But we’ll see.”
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Clearly, the shows were not able to pay the talent, but it is also likely that the shows are not providing any solid return on interest as viewership for the Marvel shows has been on a downward trend for years.
The most recent example of this is the fact that Daredevil: Born Again did not chart on Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming a single week when it initially aired on Disney+.
Before Daredevil: Born Again, Agatha All Along was only able to attract 426 million minutes in its opening week. It would manage to garner 744 million minutes the week of its season finale, but it released two episodes that week.
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Marvel dumped all six episodes of Echo onto Disney+ in January 2024. The week it was released it attracted 731 million minutes watched. It did not chart after its first week.
The second season of Loki only brought in 446 million for its premiere. That was significantly down from the first season’s premiere, which brought in 731 million minutes watched.
Given all this, these shows likely faced a similar fate to Lucasfilm’s The Acolyte. If you recall Disney Co-Chairman Alan Bergman told Vulture, “So as it relates to Acolyte, we were happy with our performance, but it wasn’t where we needed it to be given the cost structure of that title, quite frankly, to go and make a season two. So that’s the reason why we didn’t do that.”
The shows are just far too expensive for the return that Disney is getting from them, and it’s abundantly clear that Disney+ subscribers are not signing up for Marvel given the Marvel shows viewership has trended downward despite Disney+ subscriber counts increasing.
What do you make of Winderbaum’s comments?
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I think Winderbaum is doing what we know leftists do: blame anything else except the real reason.
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