Disney built its streaming empire around Marvel and Star Wars. Now Wall Street is arguing those franchises may be worth more outside Disney+.
Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall says Disney could raise its stock price by 40 percent by abandoning the streaming wars and returning “to its old biz model of producing vs. distributing,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Disney stock rose 1.75 percent in early Monday trading as the note circulated.
For Marvel and Star Wars, the argument is hard to ignore.
The expensive new shows Disney created to drive subscriptions increasingly fail to register on Nielsen’s charts, while nearly all Disney+ engagement comes from the older catalog Disney could license to Netflix, Amazon, Paramount-Warner or another rival.
Instead of using Marvel and Star Wars to carry Disney+, Disney could make the streamers bid against one another for them.
Wall Street Puts A $15 Billion Price On Disney’s Library
Cahall points to Sony’s pay-one movie deal with Netflix, worth about $1 billion annually.
Wells Fargo estimates Disney’s film output would command nearly $4 billion annually for the first streaming window alone, roughly four times Sony’s deal.
Add later windows and Disney’s unmatched catalog, and Cahall believes total licensing revenue could hit $15 billion per year.
That catalog includes Disney animation, Pixar, 20th Century Fox, Marvel and Star Wars, the same library Disney pulled back from competitors to build Disney+.
The argument is not that Marvel and Star Wars have no value. It is that Disney may be limiting their value by keeping them locked inside a streaming platform whose new originals are struggling to draw broad audiences.
Marvel’s New Shows Aren’t Carrying Disney+
The viewing numbers already show what is keeping Disney+ running, and it is not the latest wave of Marvel originals.
As we reported, roughly 95 percent of Disney+ viewing during the first quarter of 2026 came from catalog titles. Only about 5 percent came from recent originals, making Disney+ the most catalog-dependent major streamer measured.
Nearly every minute watched comes from the old library Disney already owns while the company continues spending money on new shows that barely move the platform.
Daredevil: Born Again went 0-for-17 on Nielsen across its first two seasons. The Season 2 finale failed to chart during a week when the cutoff was only 334 million minutes.
Wonder Man disappeared from Nielsen after one week. The Punisher: One Last Kill missed the chart entirely.
Marvel is moving ahead anyway. Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 is getting bigger with a Defenders reunion, while Wonder Man is also returning; yet at the same time, it’s moving away from the big-budget approach that launched Disney+.
So Disney continues to spend to produce Marvel content for an audience that is primarily using Disney+ to watch older movies and shows.
Under Cahall’s model, Disney could stop carrying the full cost and risk of operating the platform and sell that same Marvel library to companies desperate for recognizable franchises.
Star Wars Lost The Audience Disney+ Was Supposed To Build
Star Wars makes the argument even more obvious.
Disney+ launched The Mandalorian as one of its defining originals, then flooded the platform with additional Star Wars series. The expansion did not strengthen the franchise.
Star Wars television viewership fell by more than 70 percent, while the theatrical audience dropped roughly 85 percent between The Force Awakens and The Mandalorian & Grogu.
The Force Awakens made $2.071 billion worldwide in 2015. More than a decade later, The Mandalorian & Grogu crawled toward roughly $316 million and became the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars movie domestically.
Disney took one of the biggest theatrical brands in history, turned it into a steady stream of television content, and watched the event status disappear.
Now Star Wars appears headed for the same rest-and-reset strategy already underway at Marvel.
Marvel has Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars clearing the board before a rebuilt MCU centered around the X-Men.
Lucasfilm has an almost empty release calendar beyond Star Wars: Starfighter, a new leadership regime, and years of reboot rumors lining up behind it.
The question is what Disney does with Marvel and Star Wars while those brands cool off.
Disney Could Make Its Rivals Pay For The Reset
Our insiders previously told us Disney is looking for outside material because “they need new material to rest their legacy IP before they relaunch them again.”
That is why Disney has been looking at possible acquisitions as it prepares to compete with Paramount-Warner.
The goal is to find other franchises capable of filling the gap while Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar are repaired.
Insiders also told us Disney needs to win back the male and family audiences those brands lost, and that the company is “scrambling for course correction.”
Cahall’s proposal offers another piece of that strategy.
Disney could rest Marvel and Star Wars, rebuild them for theatrical relaunches and still collect billions by licensing the existing movies and shows to rival streamers.
Netflix, Amazon and a combined Paramount-Warner would be left competing for the brands while Disney concentrates on producing the movies, rebuilding the audience and feeding its parks, cruises and merchandise businesses.
Disney+ was supposed to prove that owning distribution made Marvel and Star Wars more valuable.
After years of declining audiences, missed Nielsen charts and a platform running almost entirely on old content, Wall Street is now making the opposite case.
Marvel and Star Wars may be worth more when Disney stops using them to prop up Disney+ and starts making its rivals pay for them.
And who knows? Under Cahall’s plan, those millions and millions of fans still watching She-Hulk and The Acolyte may get a Season 2.
