Marvel under fire again as Trump supporter and ex-boss Ike Perlmutter breaks silence
“All they talk about is box office, box office…I care about the bottom line. I don’t care how big the box office is" -Isaac Perlmutter
Fresh off the failure of its latest feature film Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania and the phenomenon of “Marvel fatigue” that has been setting in for quite some time now, Marvel and its parent company Disney find yet another person to bad-mouth it: Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter.
Marvel is already caught in controversy ever since it fired its longtime producer and ex-Executive Vice President Victoria Alonso this year. With Alonso’s lawyer suggesting that Disney fired the openly-lesbian producer with regards to her criticism of Marvel censoring pro-LGBTQIA+ content in her films, people can speculate that Marvel is crushing down on any “woke” ambassadors.
However, Marvel doesn’t seem to discriminate as it also fired Perlmutter this March. The infamous Marvel exec is an Israel-American billionaire and a devoted Donald Trump supporter. Not only does he share a friendship with the former American President but also served as an unofficial advisor in his term with regards to the Department of Veteran Affairs.
What is Perlmutter’s issue with Marvel?
Bad blood has brewed between Perlmutter and Marvel since the late 2000s but it became more than obvious this year when he was fired from his position of Chairman of Disney’s Marvel Entertainment. This division is separate from the films and TV show-producing Marvel Studios and handles comic-book publishing and merchandise-licensing instead.
Perlmutter’s power at Marvel and Disney cannot be underestimated as he is one of Disney’s largest shareholders (owning 30 million Disney shares worth over $3 billion). While he usually refrains from interviews, the 80-year-old broke his silence on his recent termination in a chat with Wall Street Journal.
He feels that his constant efforts in the past years to distract Marvel’s focus from superhero movies might have led to his firing. Perlmutter adds that he feels what sets him apart from the Disney leadership is that he focuses more on “return on investment”.
However, he didn’t specify what exactly he means by this “bottom line”. Despite Marvel’s controversies, the Kevin Fiege-led Marvel Cinematic Universe has still managed to gross more than $20 billion worldwide, making it one of the most successful franchises of all time.
Perlmutter feels that the MCU movies can take too long to produce and be too expensive for generating any beneficial returns.
What is Disney’s reason behind Perlmutter’s termination?
A Disney representative has told media outlets that the entertainment giant’s counsel Horacio Gutierrez called up Perlmutter to inform him about the termination.
This firing was explained as a part of Disney’s ongoing restructuring and mass firings (publicly announced by CEO Bob Iger). This effort would lead to a cut-down of $5.5 billion from Disney’s content and administrative budgets and elimination of 7,000 jobs.
Perlmutter still feels that this was an excuse to kick him out, calling his firing “merely a convenient excuse to get rid of a longtime executive who dared to challenge the company’s way of doing business.”
Perlmutter was Kevin Fiege’s predecessor
Marvel’s blockbuster formula of creating a shared universe (the MCU AKA Marvel Cinematic Universe) is largely regarded as Kevin Fiege’s brainchild. Fiege has served as the President of Marvel Studios since 2007, vastly revamping on-screen depictions of characters from Marvel Comics under the common MCU umbrella.
Perlmutter however had a longer relationship with Marvel, co-owning the action figure-producing company Toy Biz (later called Marvel Toys) in 1990. The businessman also became the CEO of Marvel Comics in 2005 and took control over Marvel Entertainment to oversee the development of Marvel-related movies.
By 2008, the Kevin Fiege-produced Iron Man kickstarted the MCU and a year later, Disney acquired Marvel. This is from when problems began for Perlmutter who didn’t take a seat on Disney’s board of directors (even though he was handsomely compensated with $800 million in cash after the acquisition).
Perlmutter’s previous controversies with Marvel
Up until 2015, Perlmutter still oversaw the affairs of Marvel Studios even if Fiege was President. However, owing to Fiege reportedly growing frustrated with Perlmutter's supervision, Disney worked out a restructured board through which Fiege would directly report to the chair of The Walt Disney Studios.
One of Perlmutter’s much talked-about controversies regarding his meddling in the MCU was with regards to the re-casting of the Iron Man character James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine. While Terrence Horward played the character in the first Iron Man film, he began demanding more money for the sequel which led to him being replaced by Don Cheadle. But Perlmutter’s rationale is the aspect that raised eyebrows as her argued that all black people “look the same”.
By 2017, an industry insider told Vanity Fair that Perlmutter “neither discriminates nor cares about diversity, he just cares about what he thinks will make money.”
Well, Fiege himself has proved to be a money-maker for Marvel along with significant diversity with properties like Black Panther and Ms Marvel (even if audiences might argue the diversity to be “tokenistic” at times). More insights on Fiege or any other Marvel exec’s response on Perlmutter’s firings are still awaited.
