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How Bankrupt Marvel Risked Its Main Characters to Save Itself - Cheddar Examines - YouTube
Channel: Cheddar
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It's December 27th, 1996.
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After years of bleeding money Marvel just fired one-third of its employees.
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Shares that had been worth $35.75 cents in 1993,
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are now $2.38 cents.
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The company is $610 million in debt.
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They're filing for bankruptcy.
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For the next seven years,
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Marvel was stock movies like Blade, X men,
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and Spider-Man were relative successes but Marvel saw a meager percentage of the profits.
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But one man had a plan to restore glory for Marvel,
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a plan that risked the rights to their pivotal characters.
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In 1989, Ronald Perelman bought Marvel for $82.5 million.
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The billionaire businessman with a signature grin and huge cigar had
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a long repertoire of turning around dying brands for a profit.
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He immediately raised prices and pumped out more titles.
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Initially fans were buying multiple copies of
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each new comic betting on their eventual high worth.
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So that, generated a speculator boom,
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in the same way that any speculator boom happens.
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So, people were buying 10 copies of a comic and
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stocking nine of them away
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in the hopes that they would be worth millions of dollars someday.
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Within just two years, profits increased tenfold.
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But what Marvel made in cash the comics lost in quality.
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Comic sellers at all levels were printing what
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were called variance and so you'd have a comic with the
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same inside the same story on the inside but a different cover or
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a slight a slight variation on the way that it was presented.
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The pressure for profits was decreasing
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the quality of the product which was now flooding the market.
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The rise in future value was becoming increasingly unlikely to double down on profits.
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Marvel decided to produce more memorabilia,
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but the industry was shrinking and Marvel was in trouble.
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We haven't been too lucky
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By 1995, chasing profits caught up to Perelman and Marvel.
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The company reported a loss of $48 million and a debt of $581 million.
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At this point Perelman knew the future was in film and not in cards or comics.
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So, he proposed merging Marvel with
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action figure company Toy Biz to launch Marvel Studios.
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However, shareholders blocked the plan arguing
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financial damage to shares would be too great.
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Perelman filed for bankruptcy in order to continue his plan without shareholder consent.
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After a two year court case Mr. Perelman's ties to the company were severed.
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Marvel was now owned by two Toy Biz executives,
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Isaac Perlmutter and Avi Arad.
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Like Perelman, they had a direct target, movies.
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They knew this was the future but Marvel,
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fresh out of bankruptcy needed quick cash.
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So they auctioned the cinematic rights of their characters to Hollywood.
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The problem was Hollywood executives didn't see
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the value and Marvel was forced into unfavorable deals.
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Marvel movies of the late 90's and early 2000's were blockbuster hits.
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Blade made $70 million in the box office,
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but Marvel reportedly took in just $25,000.
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Spider-man made $3 billion off the first two Spider-man movies,
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but Marvel only saw $62 million total.
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They were sitting on a goldmine but cut into reap the benefits.
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David Maisel calls himself a cross between Iron Man and Peter Pan.
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He lives in a two bedroom rental in LA.
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He doesn't have an assistant lawyer or an agent.
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But Maisel is a multimillionaire whose bold idea defined a generation of film.
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In 2003, Marvel was getting ready to sell
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Captain America to Warner Brothers and Thor to Sony Pictures.
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This is when Maisel stepped in.
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Maisel met owners Arad and Perlmutter with an audacious plan.
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Make the movies yourself.
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Not only would this give Marvel 100 per cent of the profits.
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But it would also allow characters to cross over stories just like
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they do in the comics creating the potential for endless sequels.
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Arad and Perlmutter were eventually convinced but needed the money.
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It took until 2005 to get a deal.
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Marvel Inch contributed $525 million
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over seven years allowing Marvel to make any superhero movie they wanted,
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but there was one big condition.
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The collateral was the movie rights to 10 main characters.
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Marvel Studios was all in.
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Their first order of business was assembling previously sold characters.
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They managed to reacquire the rights to characters like Black Widow,
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the Hulk and of course Iron Man.
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From their Marvel Studios chose
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self-proclaimed comic book nut Kevin Fikry as their president,
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a man passionate about Marvel.
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On May 2nd, 2008 Iron Man hit the big screen the future of Marvel was at stake.
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It was an instant blockbuster hit.
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In the first weekend,
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the movie pulled in close to $100 million.
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In total the first film made $585 million.
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Yeah, I can fly.
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It was such a massive success that in 2009 at Disney bought Marvel for $4.3 billion.
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The rest is history.
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In total, Marvel movies have grossed over $14 billion since Iron Man.
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That's roughly 13 percent of the total box office since 2008.
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In July of 2018,
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Disney's shareholders approved the acquisition of
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21st century's film and television studios.
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Fox previously owned the rights to X-Men,
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Fantastic Four, and Deadpool.
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You can bet future movies will be jam packed.
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