0:00

It's April 2019. Inside packed movie

0:02

theaters, audiences are watching the climax

0:05

of Avengers

0:10

Endgame.

0:23

And what you're hearing is

0:28

the sound of peak Marvel mania.

0:35

Theater shaking cheers as

0:37

every Marvel superhero from the studio's 22

0:40

movies over the past decade appears

0:43

on screen, all together

0:45

for the first time.

0:48

I wasn't recording in my theater, but I

0:50

remember the cheers. There are tons

0:52

of similar videos online. People

0:58

in the theaters were losing their minds because

1:00

superhero movies are more than just

1:03

hits.

1:04

They're at the center of global

1:06

popular culture. And

1:08

it's not just Marvel superheroes. It's

1:11

DC Comics too. You can't

1:13

escape them. So

1:16

Iron Man, Captain America, Thor,

1:17

Spider-Man. I just love everything at the heart

1:20

of the Spidey universe. Gamora

1:22

and Star-Lord. Superman and Batman

1:25

were my first love. Hulk, Black

1:27

Widow and Hawkeye. Black Panther,

1:30

Ant-Man.

1:30

Rocket Raccoon 2. Catwoman.

1:32

Doctor Strange. Nick Fury. He's

1:34

the guy who connects the Avengers.

1:39

To me, this is mind-blowing. I

1:41

remember going to my local comic book store as a

1:43

teenager, spending $1.75 for the

1:46

latest issue of Flash or Spider-Man. They

1:48

weren't cool. And neither was I.

1:52

Trust me. Today,

1:54

I'm a journalist. I've spent most

1:56

of the past 20 years covering the entertainment

1:58

industry.

1:59

In that time, I've seen movies based

2:02

on comic books I grew up reading take over

2:04

Hollywood. Some of them are

2:06

great. The Dark Knight, Black Panther,

2:09

Logan, and Into the Spider-Verse are

2:11

among my favorite films. Others

2:14

aren't so good. But

2:17

most of them are big at the box office.

2:19

So big that they've pushed other genres I

2:21

love, like original dramas and comedies,

2:24

to the margins of the movie business.

2:27

How did that happen? How did those

2:29

comic books that used to be just for geeks like

2:31

me become one of the most powerful

2:33

forces in global entertainment?

2:36

Primarily it's the story of one

2:38

company. Marvel.

2:41

The most successful film studio of

2:43

the modern era.

2:46

Just 25 years ago, Marvel

2:49

was bankrupt. Its climb

2:51

to the top is an astonishing tale, full

2:53

of unlikely heroes, bitter feuds,

2:56

little known deals, and incredible luck.

3:00

It's

3:00

not just the greatest business story in Hollywood

3:03

this century. It's one of the best

3:05

business stories of our lifetimes. And

3:08

whether you think superheroes are the only reason

3:10

to go to movie theaters these days, or

3:12

they're the death of cinema, you've got

3:15

to know how it happened.

3:20

From the journal, this is With

3:22

Great Power, the Rise of Superhero

3:25

Cinema. I'm Ben Fritz, and

3:27

this is episode one.

3:30

Origin Story.

3:56

Beech, camping in nature, exploring

3:58

new cities.

3:59

Perfect place to stay. Booking.com. Booking.yeah.

4:04

Tap the banner to learn more.

4:16

The story of Marvel Comics is a long one, going

4:18

back nearly 100 years. And as

4:20

a lifelong nerd, I would be remiss if I

4:22

didn't at least mention the names of legendary

4:25

Marvel artists and writers like Steve

4:27

Ditko, Jack Kirby, and

4:29

of course, Stan Lee.

4:31

But the story of Marvel Studios, the

4:33

company that makes Marvel movies,

4:36

features a somewhat different cast. It

4:38

begins about 30 years ago

4:40

with a pair of Israeli immigrants named

4:43

Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad. These

4:47

days, Avi lives in Beverly Hills, where

4:49

I went to visit him. Hi, nice to call

4:52

on you, doctor. Avi

4:55

is 74.

4:56

He has white hair and a short beard. His

4:59

home office is a shrine to Marvel. Signed

5:02

movie posters, a life-size Spider-Man

5:04

figure, and hundreds, hundreds

5:07

of toys. So,

5:09

Avi, just so you know how this will go, I'm gonna, we're

5:12

gonna cover a lot of stuff in your amazing career

5:14

with Marvel. And to whatever extent

5:16

you can remember, for a podcast, it's great

5:18

to tell stories.

5:20

I'd love to hear your anecdotes about certain

5:22

meetings with people, or the more

5:24

details, the better. Great, great. So,

5:27

I think, you know- My suggestion

5:30

is to start, how did you get

5:32

to Marvel? That's exactly where, that's exactly where I

5:34

wanna start. I know that you were a

5:37

toy designer, right?

5:38

So how did you go from, how did you end

5:40

up working at Marvel after starting your career as a toy

5:42

designer? I'll tell you the story. Please. So,

5:45

I came to this country, and I

5:48

went to school in

5:51

Long Island.

5:52

I went to Hofstra. And

5:55

Avi grew up in Tel Aviv reading Spider-Man comics

5:57

in Hebrew. He moved to the US

5:59

in the-

5:59

to study engineering, but soon found himself

6:02

working in the toy business.

6:04

So fast forward, I

6:06

got into it and I fell in love,

6:09

of course, with toys. I'm

6:12

starting to design toys for different

6:14

people.

6:15

And a friend of mine, who was a media

6:18

guy, said to me, I want you to meet

6:20

someone. And that was Ike

6:22

Perlmutter.

6:23

Ike Perlmutter, an

6:26

extremely tough businessman who would go

6:28

on to become one of Avi's closest associates.

6:32

Ike

6:32

is famously private. There

6:34

are barely any photos of him, and he pretty

6:36

much never gives interviews.

6:39

That's why you won't hear Ike's voice in this podcast.

6:42

But we did speak with him, on

6:44

the record, just not on tape. And

6:47

you'll hear some details from that conversation later.

6:50

Like Avi, Ike also immigrated to New

6:52

York from Israel as a young man. I

6:55

came here, he had nothing. Zero,

6:58

he was walking in the street, going to

7:00

funeral to sing the cadiz

7:03

and then started selling things

7:05

in the street, and then from a car.

7:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:10

Ike was in the business of liquidation.

7:13

That means he would find products companies were eager

7:15

to unload, from last season's close

7:18

to last year's electronics. And he

7:20

would sell them at just enough to turn a profit.

7:23

When Avi went to Ike's office for the first time

7:25

in the early 90s, he found it was

7:27

full of random

7:28

stuff. I

7:30

come to his office and it's dog

7:33

food, Revlon, he was a

7:35

liquidator, but he was very,

7:38

very wealthy by then already.

7:42

Ike wanted to talk to Avi about a struggling

7:45

toy company he ended up owning through

7:47

one of his liquidation deals.

7:49

It was called Toy Biz. And

7:52

Avi was surprised to find that Toy Biz owned

7:54

the rights to make products based on superheroes,

7:57

Marvel superheroes. had

8:00

the rights because Marvel had zero

8:03

value then. No

8:05

one wanted Marvel, eh, comic book, comics

8:07

are for kids, no comics are for geeks,

8:10

whatever. It was worthless. No

8:13

one wanted to do anything with it.

8:15

Marvel had revolutionized the comic book business

8:18

in the 1960s with a slew of new characters like

8:21

the X-Men, Hulk,

8:23

Iron Man, and its crown jewel,

8:26

Spider-Man. By the 1990s, though,

8:28

Marvel management had made a series of bad

8:30

business decisions, and

8:32

the company was floundering, burdened

8:34

with hundreds of millions of dollars in

8:36

debt.

8:37

The rights to make Marvel action figures had ended

8:40

up in the hands of Ike Perlmutter,

8:42

but he had no idea what to do with them. Ike

8:45

had never read a comic book.

8:47

He didn't know Captain America from Captain

8:49

Crunch. He says to

8:51

me, uh, so what do you want to

8:53

do? I want to make these toys. They

8:56

made these toys. No one wants it. No one cares.

8:59

What about Spider-Man? What's Spider-Man? I

9:01

mean, he really is. He

9:03

is

9:04

agnostic to culture. Never

9:07

had kids, and forget, don't

9:09

go to movies.

9:11

Avi's knowledge of Marvel, plus Ike's

9:13

strong business sense, proved to be a formidable

9:15

combination.

9:17

In the next couple years, the pair made

9:19

millions of dollars selling Marvel toys.

9:23

Then, in 1996, Marvel itself came crashing down. Unable

9:28

to pay all that debt, the publisher filed

9:31

for bankruptcy. There

9:33

were a bunch of bids to buy Marvel out, including

9:35

one from Avi and Ike, who saw another

9:38

opportunity to get a struggling company on the

9:40

cheap. They argued

9:42

that since comic book sales were falling and

9:44

toy sales were growing, the guys

9:46

who knew toys were best suited to take over. And

9:49

they won. In 1998,

9:52

Avi and Ike took control of Marvel. But

9:55

there was still a lot of work to do. The

9:57

company emerged from bankruptcy with virtually no credit.

10:00

cash.

10:02

And Marvel at the time was in very

10:04

poor shape. Comics are not selling.

10:07

Comics sold at the time, like newspapers.

10:10

But the toy company started to build

10:13

big time. And what made you confident

10:15

that Marvel could be a very successful company

10:18

at that point?

10:19

Comic books are basically

10:22

storyboards of great stories.

10:25

People want to fly. People want to be a hero.

10:28

People want to be a villain. And

10:30

it's all part of the same gestalt. And

10:32

you are a villain if you feel

10:34

someone done wrong to you. In my

10:37

book, villains are victims

10:39

of circumstance. You're not

10:41

born like that. You know?

10:47

Not everyone was as optimistic about

10:49

Marvel's future as Avi.

10:51

Not even the people writing the comics. My

10:54

name is Brian Michael Bendis. I'm a writer and a comics

10:56

creator. And I'm most known

10:58

for co-creating Miles Morales, Jessica

11:01

Jones, Naomi, Breebree Williams,

11:03

and the such.

11:04

So would you tell us sort of how

11:06

you got started working at Marvel? At

11:09

six years old, I stood up at the dining

11:12

room table and announced I would be the artist of Spider-Man.

11:14

And everything I did from that moment on was

11:17

towards the goal of working

11:20

at Marvel Comics.

11:22

Growing up, Brian had heard about the Marvel

11:24

bullpen.

11:25

It was an exciting place where writers and artists

11:28

joked around and bounced ideas off each other.

11:31

To a young fanboy like Brian

11:33

and me, it sounded like heaven.

11:36

In 1999, shortly after

11:38

Avi and Ike took over,

11:40

Brian and other writers arrived at Marvel's

11:42

headquarters in New York.

11:44

But it wasn't exactly what they dreamed about.

11:47

And when we walked in the door, most

11:49

of the bullpen's lights were off, the

11:52

desks were abandoned, and

11:54

there was piles of furniture in the corner

11:57

with a post-it note that said, sold. They

11:59

were selling f-

11:59

filing cabinets for cash. And

12:02

I did, I think I may have actually said

12:04

out loud to my friend, oh my God, I'll be writing the last

12:06

Marvel Comics.

12:09

Selling furniture for cash was a way to keep

12:11

the lights on, but the new Marvel's

12:13

main goal was to sell more toys.

12:16

And Avi thought he knew how to do it.

12:18

He just had to convince Ike. I

12:20

said, we have to do a television

12:23

show. He said, oh,

12:26

how do we do a television show? What do we do? He

12:29

said, the way

12:31

to do a television show is we spend

12:33

money and make a show.

12:35

What are you advertising? Our toys. That's

12:38

it. He was in. So the way

12:40

you convinced Ike Perlmutter to get into the entertainment

12:43

business was that it would sell toys. It

12:45

was all about toys initially,

12:47

because he understood, he knew

12:50

how to do these things and was very successful.

12:53

And we had to deal. I do the creative.

12:56

I gave myself a title.

12:58

I became chief creative

13:00

officer. And I said, you stay out

13:03

of it because you'll get a heart attack

13:05

every time we move. Ike

13:07

would have a heart attack because TV shows

13:10

and movies cost money. And

13:12

Ike Perlmutter hated spending money.

13:15

But Avi convinced him to make an animated show

13:17

based on the mutant superhero team X-Men.

13:20

It was a hit.

13:22

And more importantly to Ike,

13:24

it sold a lot of toys. The

13:27

TV show was just a warmup, though.

13:30

Avi wanted to make movies.

13:32

Marvel's competitor DC Comics had

13:35

released four Superman films and

13:37

four Batman films

13:38

from the late 1970s through the mid-90s.

13:42

They made the characters famous worldwide.

13:44

What was actually happening and

13:46

the reason we were invited in was the starting,

13:49

the seeds of

13:51

regrowing the business from scratch. We

13:53

all know these are movies and TV shows. We all can

13:55

see it. And so it was just so

13:58

fascinating watching.

13:59

that wall fall down.

14:02

Marvel had an X-Men live-action film already

14:04

in the works, which would go on to be a moderate

14:06

success. But

14:08

to Avi, there was one character

14:10

poised to be a home run and turn around

14:12

Marvel's fortunes. Spider-Man

14:14

was ace in the hole. That

14:17

was the big one for me, for where I come from.

14:25

Spider-Man had been Marvel's most successful

14:27

and beloved character since soon after

14:29

his first appearance in 1962.

14:33

The basic

14:33

premise is a teenager named Peter Parker

14:35

gets bit by a radioactive spider,

14:38

becomes super strong, shoots webs,

14:40

and fights crime in a red and blue

14:42

suit.

14:44

Making a Spider-Man film wouldn't be easy,

14:46

though. In the 1980s, when

14:48

Marvel was struggling financially, it

14:50

sold the Spider-Man movie rights, according to reports,

14:53

for just $225,000. And

14:57

in the end, the rights to release the film on

14:59

DVD ended up in the hands of one

15:01

of Hollywood's biggest studios. Sony

15:04

Pictures owned a piece of the

15:06

underlying rights to Spider-Man. And

15:09

at the time, also, Avi Arad

15:12

was busy pitching the

15:14

Marvel portfolio. That's

15:16

Yair Landau. He was a junior

15:18

business executive for Sony in the late 90s. Like

15:22

Marvel, Sony was also interested

15:24

in making a Spider-Man movie. The

15:26

studio was looking for its next big hit, and

15:29

at the time, superhero films were making

15:31

a splash.

15:36

1989's Batman,

15:38

a character belonging to Marvel rival DC

15:40

Comics, was especially popular.

15:43

I'm Batman. Our

15:47

aspiration was just to achieve a fraction

15:49

of the success

15:50

that Batman had achieved. We didn't

15:52

dare kind of set our economic sights

15:55

at exceeding that, right? Because Batman was incredible.

15:58

So that was our bench for the show. was

16:00

like, well, we think Spider-Man could do some

16:03

fraction of what Batman

16:05

did. But in order to make a Spider-Man

16:07

movie, Sony had to strike a deal

16:10

with Marvel, which meant Yair

16:12

would have to negotiate with Ike and Avi.

16:15

Those negotiations would turn out to be one of the most important

16:18

moments of his professional life. And

16:21

in fact, here, I brought a prop. Oh,

16:24

this is a Spider-Man ring that

16:26

Ike and Avi gave me.

16:28

Ike, promo to our Navi Arod are big characters,

16:31

are big personalities, right? Enormous. Tell

16:33

me about Ike. What was your impression of him? And do you remember

16:35

first meeting him?

16:36

I do remember first meeting him. And

16:39

as we started the negotiations

16:42

with Ike and Avi, we flew out to meet

16:44

with Marvel in New York. Theoretically,

16:46

it was in everyone's interest for a Spider-Man

16:48

movie to get made. Sony

16:51

wanted to hit film, and Marvel wanted

16:53

money from Sony, and the opportunity

16:55

to sell more toys. Ike

16:57

invited Yair and his boss, a

16:59

man named Bob Wynn, to a deli

17:02

around the corner from Marvel's office. Ike

17:05

proceeded to push Bob's buttons the

17:07

entire meal.

17:10

How? Just

17:13

was looking at ways to irritate

17:16

him and to try to get a

17:18

negotiation edge in advance of the negotiation.

17:21

And Ike was

17:23

just, and we won't do this, and

17:26

you won't do that, and we won't do this, and

17:28

you need us, and we don't need you. And he

17:31

offended Bob so much that we walked

17:34

all the way from the Third Avenue deli to

17:36

the St. Regis where we were staying, just

17:38

so he could cool down.

17:41

And he was like, we are never going to

17:43

make a deal

17:43

with those guys. Still,

17:47

Yair, who grew up watching Spider-Man cartoons,

17:49

believed it could be the hit Sony was looking for. He

17:52

thought it was worth putting up with Ike's antics. They

17:55

had just to march out of bankruptcy. They had no cash, and

17:59

they knew we had to.

17:59

had a sliver of the rights. And they also

18:02

knew, obviously, that we were very interested in making

18:04

Marvel movies. So they came

18:06

to me, and we negotiated a deal for 25

18:09

Marvel movies for $25 million. Did

18:12

they put all their characters on the table? Every

18:15

single character that they controlled was on the

18:17

table as part of that deal. Think

18:19

about that. The rights to 25 characters

18:21

for $25 million. Iron

18:25

Man, Thor, Captain America.

18:27

These days, they're worth billions.

18:29

And they were all available for Sony to take

18:32

for a measly million dollars per character.

18:36

It could have been the deal of the century.

18:39

But when Yair took the offer to his bosses at

18:41

Sony, they passed.

18:44

The collective team decided

18:48

they didn't care about the other Marvel

18:50

properties that they didn't want to invest in them. I

18:52

was told nobody gives a shit about anybody but Spider-Man.

18:55

Do you remember what you thought when they said that? I thought they

18:58

were idiots. That's

19:00

what I thought. But I

19:02

was viewed as the suit because

19:04

at the time I wore a suit to work. And

19:08

their view was I didn't know anything creatively.

19:10

So my opinion on

19:13

what made sense in terms of, because

19:17

ultimately it's a creative decision, right? So

19:20

my marching orders were go back and just get

19:22

Spider-Man. So tell

19:24

me about going back to Marvel and the negotiation to

19:26

finally get those Spider-Man rights. I called

19:28

Avi back and I said,

19:32

they don't want to do the deal. They

19:34

only want Spider-Man. And

19:36

his response was, fuck you, you guys are

19:39

idiots. We're not doing business with you. And

19:44

we did not talk for several

19:46

months. I believe it was six months.

19:48

Sony declined to comment.

19:50

Eventually, tempers cooled.

19:54

We couldn't make the movie without them. And

19:56

they couldn't make the movie without us. And

19:59

that was the. key to the negotiation. We

20:02

were, you know, we were handcuffed,

20:05

right? So they knew that they needed us

20:07

to make it and we knew we needed them. So

20:10

that's what kept the negotiation going over

20:12

the 12-month period.

20:13

Finally, Yair made a deal

20:15

with Ikenabi.

20:17

It gave Sony full control of the Spider-Man

20:20

movie rights.

20:21

Forever. We paid them $10 million,

20:24

which back in 98, 99 was

20:26

a lot of money. And then

20:28

they owned 5% of the gross

20:30

receipts, so they got 5% of

20:32

whatever revenue was generated by the property.

20:36

Sony got 95% of

20:38

the Spider-Man movie revenue. But

20:40

Ikenabi didn't care much about that at

20:43

the time.

20:44

They just wanted that $10 million to keep the lights

20:46

on, and they hoped the movie would sell

20:48

a lot of Spider-Man toys.

20:52

A

20:52

Spider-Man film was finally

20:54

going to be made, and it would

20:56

launch a new era for Marvel and

20:59

for Hollywood.

21:03

That's after the break.

21:09

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Life

21:12

comes with a lot of decisions, and it's hard to know

21:14

the right path. A therapist can help you

21:16

map out what you really want, so you trust

21:18

yourself to make great choices and feel excited

21:21

about the future. BetterHelp offers professional

21:23

online therapy on your schedule, however

21:25

you want it, by phone, chat, or video

21:27

call. Let therapy be your map with

21:30

BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash

21:32

journal today to get 10% off your first

21:34

month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P,

21:37

dot com slash journal.

21:39

This episode is brought to you

21:41

by Booking.com. Booking. Yeah.

21:44

Podcasts are a kind of escapism, but

21:46

when you need to actually get away, there's Booking.com.

21:49

You can choose from thousands of unique stays across

21:52

the US, from hotels and beach houses

21:54

to wooden cabins and dreamy vacation rentals.

21:57

So whatever type of trip you want to take, lying

21:59

on the beach,

21:59

camping in nature, exploring new cities.

22:02

Find your perfect place to stay. Booking.com.

22:05

Booking.yeah. Tap the banner

22:08

to learn more.

22:19

Once Sony and Marvel reached a deal to

22:21

make a Spider-Man movie, the person in

22:23

charge of bringing it to the big screen was Amy

22:25

Pascal.

22:27

Amy used to run Sony's motion picture business,

22:30

and today she's a producer. I

22:32

met her at her office, in a bungalow,

22:34

on a Hollywood studio lot.

22:37

Tell me about sort of why you

22:39

wanted to get into the film business. Like what was appealing

22:41

to you? I knew

22:43

that that I

22:46

had no actual artistic talent, but

22:49

I knew that I was good

22:52

with people,

22:53

and I knew that I was

22:55

interested in business. By

22:58

the early 2000s, Amy had made a name

23:00

for herself by developing beloved dramas

23:02

and comedies like A League of Their Own and

23:04

Groundhog Day.

23:06

She showed me her library in her office, and

23:08

it was filled with novels and history books.

23:11

Oh, there's the Jane Austen section that

23:13

like, then becomes the Cleopatra section.

23:16

Did you ever think back then that you'd be making

23:19

movies out of comic books? How do you think that would have seemed to

23:21

you 30 years ago? I was never a comic

23:23

book person.

23:24

I definitely was a big reader,

23:27

but I think the books I read,

23:29

books, as opposed to comic books, that

23:31

wasn't, I didn't know that I was

23:33

going to love comic books, and I'm not

23:35

sure that I'm a comic book person now. What

23:38

I am now is somebody who

23:39

loves Peter Parker. Peter

23:41

Parker, the boy under the

23:43

Spider-Man mask. The

23:46

idea of a young man

23:49

who is an ordinary person

23:51

that something extraordinary happens to, and

23:55

he's trying to navigate through

23:57

his life how to

23:58

be a good person and how to be a good person. how hard it

24:00

is to be a good person. And

24:02

he was some kind of a cross between Huck

24:05

Finn and Holden Caulfield and Hamlet.

24:08

That just all appealed to me. He's a

24:10

character that's constantly in conflict, which is

24:12

what you're always looking for when you make movies.

24:17

Amy hired Sam Raimi to direct Spider-Man.

24:21

At the time, he was known for horror movies,

24:24

like Evil Dead. But

24:26

he too saw the story potential in Peter Parker.

24:29

Here's Raimi at a press conference in 2001. He's

24:33

one of us, unlike Superman from the Planet

24:35

Krypton or other fantastic heroes. He's

24:38

really a kid that we identify

24:40

with. And they cast a young Tobey

24:42

Maguire in the

24:43

lead role. Sam

24:46

only

24:46

ever saw one person. He only ever

24:48

saw Tobey. And he did a screen test

24:51

with Tobey and we're like, maybe.

24:54

And he did another screen test with Tobey and we

24:56

were like, oh, of course.

25:01

As production went on, Amy became nervous. Spider-Man

25:03

was a superhero movie, but

25:06

it was also about a teenage kid with a crush. Plus, the budget

25:08

was ballooning. It's

25:11

the most expensive movie. And I remember sitting in the

25:13

editing room and saying, you

25:15

know, we need another $20 million to finish

25:18

the movie. What was your level of anxiety versus

25:20

confidence when that movie was opening, as you

25:22

recall? I was petrified because I remember

25:25

thinking everyone's

25:27

going to think it's not a big enough action movie. Everyone's

25:30

going to think it doesn't have enough, like,

25:33

testosterone.

25:34

And I remember thinking, oh my God, I've made like

25:36

a, we, we, sorry, we, we have made a really

25:39

emotional comic

25:42

book movie. I hope

25:46

people are going to go for it. A

25:50

lot of the plot of Spider-Man focused on Peter's relationship with

25:53

his crush next door, Mary Jane. It

25:56

was an unusual focus for a superhero movie

25:58

back then. I'm taller than

26:00

you look. I

26:02

hunch.

26:06

Don't. By the time Spider-Man

26:08

was ready to release in theaters, the budget

26:10

had reached $140 million,

26:13

which was Sony's most expensive film ever at

26:15

the time.

26:17

On opening night, Amy, Avi,

26:19

and Tobey Maguire drove in a party bus

26:21

to movie theaters around Los Angeles.

26:24

And like nobody knew who Tobey was before

26:26

that movie. I mean, sorry, Tobey. Not that nobody

26:28

knew. But he wasn't the same

26:31

Tobey as he was after. And you

26:33

know, when we walked in, nobody cared. The

26:36

movie was over. He was mobbed.

26:38

It was very exhilarating. Spider-Man

26:43

the movie was a huge hit. Bigger

26:45

than Superman or Batman. It

26:49

was the first film to open to more than $100 million.

26:55

$114 million. Nothing had ever done that before. It was one

26:58

of the most exhilarating moments of my professional

27:00

life. Sony had never had

27:02

that kind of a success before, but nobody

27:04

had. I mean, it was like the biggest opening of

27:06

all time for a very long time. And

27:09

that felt pretty good, especially

27:12

because we made the movie that we

27:14

actually wanted to make.

27:17

Here's Yair again, the Sony

27:19

executive who negotiated the rights with Marvel. There

27:22

was a window of time after Spider-Man

27:24

came out where we

27:27

gave everybody a bonus.

27:30

We handed out $100 bills. Every

27:33

employee in the company, we

27:35

handed out $100 bills. That was really,

27:38

really gratifying. It became

27:40

and remains essentially the most significant

27:42

piece of IP that Sony pictures controls. For

27:46

many years, it was

27:48

the reason that Sony kept

27:50

the lights on, you know? Was

27:53

there ever a calculation? This is how much Spider-Man's worth

27:55

to Sony Pictures that you recall? Well,

27:58

it was worth everything.

27:59

Fair enough. On

28:03

a creative level, it proved out that

28:05

the commitment to the core

28:09

characters as relayed in the comic

28:11

books is rewarded

28:13

by the audience. So I think

28:16

that it was both a validation

28:19

of the comic books as

28:21

the core underlying story and character engine

28:23

to build around and the

28:26

scope of how big that audience

28:28

can be.

28:29

There were very few superhero movies being made

28:31

back then. The big box office movies are like Saving

28:34

Private Ryan, Titanic, right? That was,

28:36

so in hindsight, you could kind of think, why

28:38

did it take so long for people to see this potential?

28:40

I think that you needed a generation

28:44

that respected comics,

28:46

right? Even as late as the 90s, people

28:48

didn't respect comics as a

28:51

genre of storytelling,

28:54

right? They weren't novels, they weren't high art. And

28:56

I think that you needed a generation

28:58

of younger people basically who grew

29:00

up reading comics and who thought

29:02

comics were great.

29:04

Spider-Man was a monster hit,

29:08

but not everyone was happy.

29:10

We had made more money as a company

29:12

than Sony Pictures had ever made. So,

29:15

you know, the funny thing is, so we were

29:17

so successful that

29:20

Ike and Ike sued us. Avi

29:22

and Ike sued Sony.

29:26

You'd think Marvel would be thrilled at all the money Spider-Man

29:28

was making. Ike told the Wall

29:30

Street Journal that even though he was happy the movie

29:33

did well, he was mad about how much money

29:35

Sony was making. And when the world

29:37

started referring to Marvel's marquee character

29:40

as Sony's Spider-Man, he

29:42

was furious.

29:48

They felt like, hey, wait a minute, we

29:51

didn't get enough of this. Didn't

29:53

feel like we're all on the same team here. We're all trying to achieve

29:55

the same goal. We were never all on the same team.

29:59

And is that primarily?

29:59

just because Ike was always looking for an

30:02

advantage, always looking for a way to have a little

30:04

more power. I, you know, I

30:06

think it was something of tremendous value that

30:08

was where the rights were split.

30:11

And, you know, I think they

30:13

were willing to do what they

30:15

needed to do in order to claw more of it back.

30:19

Ike prided himself on being a savvy businessman.

30:23

Now he saw that when Marvel was coming out of

30:25

bankruptcy and desperately short on cash,

30:27

he had made a bad deal with Sony.

30:31

Here's Avi. So

30:33

it was very contentious. He

30:36

developed a fire

30:38

in his belly of hatred and

30:44

started terrorizing them on things that

30:47

he had the right to and

30:49

then some. Hollywood

30:51

wrote the book on how to fuck you. They

30:54

still do. I remember

30:57

so many meetings with Ike Perlmutter, where he

30:59

carried around his briefcase that everybody

31:01

told me there was a gun in it, but I don't know if that was

31:03

ever really true, but he was

31:05

pretty

31:06

unique. Anything more

31:08

you can tell about what made him unique? He's

31:12

a really good businessman, let me put it that way. Well,

31:15

look, I'll push it. I mean, Ike

31:17

is a very frugal guy and

31:20

he's a very tough negotiator. The toughest.

31:22

The toughest. Let's actually go

31:24

to my, I mean, I know some of this, right?

31:27

You say it, right? After the success of Spider-Man,

31:29

I don't know exactly when Ike started to

31:31

feel, hey, this

31:33

is our character. Sony's making a lot

31:35

more money than we are, and the world is calling this

31:37

Sony Spider-Man. How did that play

31:40

out for you? Well, in the end, they

31:42

made it more difficult for us to have

31:45

the freedom that we needed to

31:48

continue making the franchise. For

31:50

the record, Ike told the Wall Street Journal that

31:53

he has long owned a gun, but never took it to

31:55

business meetings or showed it to anyone.

32:03

Eventually, Marvel and Sony settled their

32:05

lawsuit.

32:08

Marvel got better terms on the toys, while

32:11

Sony retained the rights to produce Spider-Man

32:13

films and keep most of the profits. For

32:16

Ike and Abby, there was one big takeaway.

32:20

Movies with Marvel characters could be huge hits.

32:23

But Ike never wanted to make a deal like the one with

32:25

Sony again.

32:28

Moving forward, things were going to be

32:30

different. Ike started

32:32

to come around to an idea he never previously

32:35

would have considered and nobody

32:37

thought was possible. That

32:40

a comic book company should make its

32:42

own movies.

32:51

Next time, on With Great

32:53

Power. We

32:55

were a small toy

32:57

company, a licensing company,

33:00

we were a nothing company. So the idea

33:02

that we could actually make movies was an

33:05

astounding idea and somewhat unbelievable

33:07

to us. Coming

33:09

tomorrow.

33:13

With Great Power is

33:15

part of the journal, which is a co-production of

33:17

Gimlet and The Wall Street Journal. I'm

33:19

Ben Fritz, host and reporter. This

33:22

episode was produced by Alan Rodriguez Espinosa,

33:25

with help from Matt Kwong, Lisa Wang,

33:28

John Sanders, Matt Frasica, Colin

33:30

Campbell, and Marina Henke. The

33:33

series is edited by Catherine Brewer and Annie

33:35

Baxter. Fact checking by Nicole

33:37

Pissulka. Sound design and mixing

33:39

by Griffin Tanner. The music in this

33:42

episode is by Bobby Lord, Peter Leonard,

33:44

Griffin Tanner,

33:45

Audio Network, and Epidemic

33:47

Sound. The theme music is by So

33:49

Wylie and remixed by Nathan Singapac. Special

33:52

thanks to Maria Byrne, Rachel Humphries,

33:55

Ryan Knutson, Kate Limebaugh, Laura

33:57

Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa,

33:59

and

33:59

Sarah Platt, Sarah Rabel, Pierre

34:02

Singhe, Ethan Smith, Katherine

34:04

Whelan, and Robbie Whelan.

34:06

["The Star-Spangled

34:09

Banner"] Thanks

34:12

for listening. Check out episode two

34:15

tomorrow. I

34:23

just, what I love the most

34:26

is I love the after-credits

34:28

sequences just as much as anybody on

34:30

the planet Earth. I think they're the greatest thing that's happened

34:32

to Cinnamon in the last 20 years. Sometimes my

34:34

son was sitting down. I'm like, this movie doesn't

34:37

actually have a post-credits sequence, you know? Like, not all

34:39

movies have them. You know, it's a little baffling to him sometimes.

34:42

No, my favorite was it happened this year. We were

34:44

at Ant-Man, and like,

34:46

the movie was over, and a family stood

34:48

up, and another family said, have

34:51

they taught you nothing? Sit down.

34:54

It's not over. Like, it's been 15 years.