4:00

covers Disney for the journal, managed

4:02

to land a very rare interview with him. He's

4:05

the first reporter who's spoken extensively on

4:07

the record with Ike in decades.

4:10

So Ike is extremely private.

4:13

He never lets himself be photographed.

4:16

He never virtually never does interviews.

4:19

And you know, he wouldn't let us put his voice on

4:21

tape, but he actually did talk

4:23

to you, right? That's right.

4:25

So Robbie, can I, for this particular

4:28

podcast, is it cool if I call you my Ike

4:30

whisperer? Yeah, I'm the Ike whisperer. Yeah.

4:33

All right. Or you can say the Pearl, maybe the

4:35

Pearl Mutterr. Pearl Mutterr, okay.

4:37

I could do that too. Pearl Mutterr, I love it, man. Okay.

4:41

During their call, Ike told Robbie about

4:43

his humble upbringing. And even though

4:45

he's now worth about $4 billion, Ike

4:48

says he still thinks like, quote, the

4:50

poorest guy you never met. He

4:53

says this comes from the fact that when he was younger,

4:56

in the Middle East, he had days where there would be

4:58

no food on the table for dinner. He never

5:00

forgot that. And he always just kind of had a chip

5:02

on his shoulder about waste and about savings.

5:05

Ike said he regularly goes to Costco for

5:08

lunch with his wife,

5:09

a $3 hot dog meal, including

5:11

a diet Pepsi and a yogurt.

5:13

When it comes to business, Ike says he keeps

5:15

an equally close eye on costs.

5:18

["Ike Whisperer"] Ike Pearl

5:20

Mutterr was laser focused on this idea

5:23

that a movie should be made as cheaply

5:25

as possible. It should be marketed

5:27

as cheaply as possible. And only then can

5:29

you get the kind of return on investment that a movie

5:31

like that should be making. How did Ike

5:34

regard Hollywood

5:36

and the people who made movies in Hollywood? So

5:40

disdain would be a gentle word to

5:42

use to describe Ike's attitude

5:45

towards Hollywood. He thinks that Hollywood people don't

5:47

understand business. He thinks all they care about is

5:50

the box

5:50

office. And his

5:52

main problem with Hollywood people is that he says they don't understand

5:55

the concept

5:56

of return on investment. ["Ike,"

5:59

described Holly. would as, quote, people

6:01

in a country club making millions of dollars

6:03

going to big parties. But

6:06

after Avengers, Marvel Studios

6:08

was a power player in Hollywood. Ike

6:10

said he respected Kevin Vage's creative

6:13

instincts at the movie studio. But

6:15

he was 3,000 miles away in New York and

6:18

needed a way to keep his eye on the Hollywood operation.

6:21

His vehicle to do that had an innocuous

6:23

name, the Marvel

6:26

Creative Committee.

6:28

We would be kind of like the comic

6:31

art dirtbags coming into the room, bringing

6:33

our comic book truth.

6:35

That's once again Brian Michael Bendis,

6:37

the comic book writer you've heard from before. Brian

6:40

was a member of the Creative Committee. The

6:43

Creative Committee got set up to

6:45

be mostly pre-production

6:49

and post-production. So we would read

6:52

every draft of everything as it came

6:54

in or anything Kevin wanted us to read. But

6:56

it felt like almost everything that was coming in. Drafts

6:59

of things, outlines of things,

7:02

concepts. For example,

7:05

during the production of Iron Man 2,

7:07

members of the Creative Committee hated how Iron

7:09

Man acted when he was drunk, including

7:11

a moment when he pees in his suit. That

7:13

scene stayed in the movie, but the committee convinced

7:16

Feige to trim some dialogue they thought made

7:18

Iron Man seem cruel. The

7:21

disputes weren't just about the content of the movies,

7:23

though. They also extended to budgets.

7:27

The committee included Brian and a comic

7:29

book editor, as well as two business

7:31

executives from Marvel Entertainment in New York.

7:35

Even though it's called the Creative Committee, my

7:37

impression is that what the Creative Committee was doing was

7:40

weighing in with a strong sort

7:42

of financial perspective in mind on

7:45

certain creative decisions. And sort

7:47

of served as almost a check on what

7:49

otherwise might have been kind of out of control

7:51

spending from the side of the studio.

7:54

Ike said he became especially frustrated during

7:56

the production of 2015's Ant-Man. Ant-Man

8:01

shrinks to microscopic size. But

8:03

behind the scenes, the budget kept growing

8:05

and growing. They would come to them and say, look, for

8:08

the first Ant-Man movie, for example, they'd say, look, we can make

8:10

this movie for $60 million. They'd

8:12

say, great, sounds good. That's a pretty reasonable budget

8:15

for a big tentpole superhero movie. Then

8:17

a few weeks later, Ike and the other members of the creative

8:20

committee would get a call saying, you know, actually, we need $80

8:22

million to make this movie. And then a few

8:24

weeks later, it would be $100

8:25

million. We're sold. Ant-Man

8:29

ended up costing about $160 million to make, according

8:33

to Ike and another source inside Marvel. It

8:36

was a box office hit, thanks in part

8:38

to Paul Rudd in the leading role. I'm Ant-Man.

8:42

Ant-Man. What, you haven't heard of me? And

8:45

Ant-Man earned a profit, though it

8:47

might have made more if it had cost less.

8:52

At times, Ike's complaints over spending

8:54

didn't even have to do with how movies got made, though.

8:57

He questioned every penny the studio spent.

9:00

He told me a really funny story a couple of days ago about how

9:03

he said if there was a premiere of

9:05

a Marvel movie and a thousand people

9:07

were invited

9:08

and they were serving Pepsi at the premiere,

9:11

he would only order 800 cups

9:13

because he would assume that not everybody's

9:15

gonna drink

9:16

a Pepsi, first of all, but also, look, it's

9:19

an easy way to save money. The

9:22

guy who's the head of the studio is making

9:24

money, a hand over fist, he's trying

9:26

to save money on popcorn and Pepsi, and that's

9:29

just who Ike is.

9:30

Marvel was growing into one of the most successful

9:32

studios in Hollywood, but Ike

9:35

remained cautious. And sometimes

9:37

that caused controversy. In 2014,

9:41

Feige announced plans for a bunch of

9:43

new movies, including Black Panther,

9:45

its first film with a black superhero in the title

9:47

role, and Captain Marvel, its

9:50

first film led by a woman. The

9:52

new characters promised to bring more diversity

9:54

to the Avengers lineup.

9:57

But according to Disney CEO Bob Iger,

9:59

Ike... had objections.

10:01

Eiger recently wrote in his memoir that

10:03

Eich put up roadblocks on those two movies. Eich

10:07

disputes this characterization.

10:09

He said he did want to make Black Panther and

10:11

Captain Marvel.

10:13

He just wanted the budgets for these films to be smaller

10:15

because they seem riskier. John

10:18

Teretsin, the Marvel lawyer, and Eich's

10:20

confidant,

10:21

said Eich was not being prejudiced. Well,

10:24

we had a long history doing

10:26

diverse characters in our comic books, but

10:29

promoting one of those characters, elevating one of

10:31

those characters to a movie

10:33

and backing it with a $250 million

10:36

production budget was a whole different

10:39

level of concern and a whole different level

10:41

of risk. So for us, we were quite

10:43

concerned about audience reaction, audience

10:45

reception to breaking the mold

10:48

of the traditional successful superhero

10:50

movie starring a white guy.

10:52

So bottom line, did Eich

10:56

and the top brass at Marvel Entertainment in New

10:58

York want to make Black Panther?

11:01

Absolutely, absolutely. We had

11:03

a published film lineup of movies

11:06

we intended to make over the next several

11:08

years, and one of them was Black Panther

11:11

on that list. It was on the list. We

11:14

wanted to make the movie, but we were cautious about

11:16

it.

11:17

Increasingly, Kevin Feige and his team

11:19

were fighting with Eich Perlmutter and the Marvel

11:22

Creative Committee.

11:23

People could tell. I asked committee

11:25

member Brian Michael Bendis about it. Did

11:28

you become aware, as the 2010s

11:30

went on, Marvel Studios is very successful, did you

11:33

become aware of any, either

11:35

directly or indirectly, any tension arising

11:38

between Kevin Feige and Eich Perlmutter?

11:41

I didn't see it, but

11:44

yes. And I must say, truthfully,

11:47

everyone was super professional and respectful

11:49

in front of me. I never saw anyone throw

11:51

a chair or anything that, no succession

11:54

moments or anything like that. But I

11:56

do feel that the creative

11:59

committee was a tool.

11:59

that was being used to help,

12:02

and that eventually, slowly over time,

12:05

it was being used as a tool to

12:11

be antagonistic or on some

12:13

level. Again, it never happened in

12:15

front of me, but I do know that it went from a tool

12:18

everyone was happy with, a tool that was frustrating

12:20

people.

12:22

Feige declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

12:26

The battle between Ike Perlmutter and Kevin Feige

12:28

came to a head around one movie,

12:30

the third Captain America film. Very

12:34

few franchises get past three,

12:36

and the threes are not a long list of great threes,

12:39

right? And our thought was, you

12:41

need to start breaking this thing apart

12:44

so you can build it back up. Do something different.

12:48

Steven

12:48

McFeely is a screenwriter who's worked on a

12:50

bunch of Marvel movies. He

12:52

said Feige and his team in LA wanted to base

12:54

the third Captain America film on a

12:56

well-known comic storyline called Civil

12:59

War. It centers on the conflicts

13:01

between two warring camps of superheroes,

13:04

Team Iron Man and Team Captain

13:06

America. And

13:08

I wasn't privy to all the things that led

13:10

up to this moment, but Kevin eventually

13:12

walked in one day, and he just, I

13:14

don't think he took two steps in the room. He said, I

13:16

think we should do Civil War. And then he just ran out.

13:19

Really?

13:19

Yeah. And

13:21

that idea that we split up the Avengers after,

13:24

by that point we'd been, how many, 12, 13 movies? I

13:26

don't know. Seemed like a nice natural progression

13:29

to all of this. The

13:31

filmmakers felt it was a bold idea that could

13:33

shake up the genre, but members of

13:35

the creative committee were concerned. The

13:38

Avengers were now a super lucrative property.

13:41

Wrecking them up seemed dangerous. Plus,

13:44

Ike and members of a committee still worried about

13:47

toy sales. They thought pitting superheroes

13:49

against each other would damage the value of whichever

13:52

side fans disagreed with. We were

13:54

always told that certain ideas weren't

13:56

gonna fly because those toys don't sell,

13:59

right?

13:59

so that had come up a few times.

14:03

The creative committee asked for a new ending,

14:05

one in which Iron Man and Captain America put

14:08

aside their differences and fight a bad guy

14:10

together instead of each other. I

14:13

think New York was pretty adamant

14:15

about not having that be the third act where

14:17

our two favorite sons are fighting

14:19

each other and you're breaking them up. But that note

14:22

apparently just caused a great deal of

14:25

angst.

14:26

The creative committee thought Feige was ignoring

14:29

their notes and doing whatever

14:31

he wanted.

14:32

But Feige's team in LA thought the creative committee

14:34

was meddling in their work.

14:36

The directors of Captain America Civil War

14:39

even threatened to quit. Steven

14:41

says he thought the entire project was in jeopardy.

14:44

We're heading towards a very expensive movie and

14:47

usually you talk to people every day and then for, I don't

14:49

know, three, four days, no one return calls. There

14:52

was probably a week there when we

14:54

didn't know which, how it was gonna shake up. You were just

14:56

moving ahead and hoping with hopes for the best hopes that

14:58

you would- Yeah, I mean, prepping what we could prep.

15:01

Was there any feeling like, oh, we're making

15:03

the movie Civil War and we've sparked a bit of an internal

15:05

Civil War here? Oh, I wasn't that, you

15:08

know, I'm not that cheeky in the moment. Fair

15:10

enough.

15:12

The clash around Captain America Civil

15:14

War sunk things to a new

15:16

low. It seemed like Feige's

15:18

working relationship with Ike and the creative committee

15:21

was beyond repair. Robbie

15:23

says it threatened to get in the way of Marvel's mounting

15:26

success. It got to the point where Kevin

15:28

Feige started to get pretty annoyed and

15:30

he would push back on the recommendations

15:32

that the creative committee was making. He would push back on what

15:34

Perlmutter was saying to him about how

15:37

these movies should be made. And there's just started to

15:39

be more and more sniping back and forth

15:41

between the creative committee and Feige's team about

15:44

which movies to make and how to make them and where to set

15:46

the budgets.

15:49

Ike says he tried to salvage the relationship.

15:52

In 2015, he called a meeting at Mar-a-Lago

15:55

near his home in Florida. Feige

15:58

and a delegation from Marvel.

15:59

studios met with Ike and members of the

16:02

creative committee in a banquet room with

16:04

portraits of Donald Trump on the walls. Ike

16:08

told me that he in early 2015 decided

16:10

that they needed to have a peace

16:13

summit and Ike makes this

16:15

opening statement where he says look we've got to make peace

16:18

and he talks for about 15 minutes

16:20

explains that the studio has got

16:22

to stop fighting with the creative committee in order

16:25

to go forward and make the movies everyone wants to make

16:27

and make the kind of financial returns that they're looking to

16:29

make

16:30

as well.

16:32

The Mar-a-Lago meeting lasted only about an

16:34

hour according to people with knowledge of

16:36

the event and what

16:39

happened? They did not make peace. They

16:42

were unable to find peace.

16:46

Ike says that the meeting was quote a

16:48

breaking point.

16:50

On his way out Feige commented that he

16:52

had traveled a very long way for a

16:54

very short meeting. It was

16:56

now clear that Feige and Ike couldn't resolve

16:59

their differences.

17:00

Ike started pushing to have Feige fired

17:03

according to recent public statements from Disney

17:05

CEO Bob Iger. Ike

17:07

says that's not true. He says

17:10

he wanted Disney to appoint a designated successor

17:12

to Feige so that Marvel's entire

17:14

film business wouldn't be so dependent on just

17:17

one person.

17:18

Feige meanwhile was making moves

17:20

of his own. Kevin Feige

17:23

was very unhappy and he appealed to Bob

17:25

Iger to fix the situation and

17:27

I think he saw an ally in Iger and

17:30

when things got as he viewed it too hard to

17:32

continue doing this work under Pearl Mutter

17:35

he really did go to the top dog to the top boss

17:38

Bob Iger and say look you got to help me here.

17:41

In August of 2015 Iger sided with Feige.

17:46

Marvel Studios

17:48

became part of Disney's film operation

17:50

in LA. Iger told Ike that he was no longer in charge of Marvel

17:53

Studios and he was no longer in charge of

17:55

Kevin Feige.

18:01

Recently, Iger reflected back

18:03

on the feud between Feige and Ike in an interview

18:06

on CNBC. In 2015,

18:09

he was intent on

18:12

firing Kevin Feige, who was running

18:15

Marvel's studio, or the movie making

18:17

at the time. And

18:19

I thought that was a mistake and stepped in to

18:21

prevent that from happening. So

18:24

Ike has been essentially extracted from the chain

18:26

of command at Marvel Studios, and he's

18:29

been relegated to this side role, much

18:31

less important, much more marginal, running

18:33

Marvel Entertainment, which is all the licensing

18:35

deals, the merchandise stuff, the video

18:37

games. But they're saying, we

18:39

can no longer have you involved with these films

18:41

anymore. Kevin Feige doesn't have to take

18:44

Ike's notes anymore. Exactly. He doesn't

18:46

have to deal with Ike's objections over budget. He

18:48

doesn't have to deal with script notes from Ike and his

18:50

team. There's no more creative committee, right? Creative

18:53

committee is dissolved.

18:56

I asked John Turritsen if he remembered this

18:58

moment, when Ike lost control

19:01

of Marvel Studios. Well,

19:03

I knew there was some tension. I just didn't realize

19:05

that tension had gone that far, and I

19:07

was disappointed that it had.

19:11

When you say you were disappointed, I

19:13

mean, talk about why was it disappointing, just because you

19:15

like being involved in that business or because you thought it was

19:17

things were working? No, not personally, not personally

19:20

disappointing for me. Looking as

19:22

a sort of a company matter, it's

19:24

like we had been one company.

19:27

We had been one company working together,

19:29

and there was a sense that someone had been

19:31

ripped out. You know, this family had been separated.

19:34

It was like a divorce, effectively like a divorce.

19:38

Ike told Robbie he felt that Iger had broken

19:40

the promise he made back when Disney acquired

19:42

Marvel, the promise that Ike

19:45

would remain in charge of all Marvel's

19:47

operations. Iger declined

19:49

to comment through a spokeswoman. Over

19:52

the next few years, Ike continued to criticize

19:54

Disney's spending.

19:56

His relationship with Iger grew increasingly

19:58

contentious.

21:55

theaters

22:01

across the country overnight, and people have been lining

22:03

up all night long to see it. They've been in line for hours.

22:05

The movie is already breaking records.

22:07

Endgame grossed $2.7

22:09

billion. For

22:13

a time, it was the highest grossing movie

22:15

in history. It remains

22:17

the second highest today.

22:20

For Marvel fans, Endgame was the ultimate

22:23

reward for a decade of moviegoing. Here's

22:26

how Lachine Williams, a fan at Brooklyn

22:28

Comic-Con, described the joy of

22:30

that moment. It was everything.

22:33

I don't think any movie could ever, ever duplicate

22:36

the feeling we got watching Endgame. We all

22:38

just went, oh my God. It was nuts.

22:41

It was like being in a stadium. It was crazy. Of

22:44

course, I led the charge. I was the one screaming the loudest. Oh,

22:46

man. Just 11

22:50

years

22:50

after its first film, Marvel

22:52

was at a peak that no studio had ever

22:55

reached before, both financially and

22:57

culturally. But

22:59

staying on top has presented a whole new set

23:01

of problems.

23:05

That's after the break.

23:11

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Life

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H-E-L-P, dot com slash journal.

23:50

Being

23:53

on the set of a Marvel film, I mean, what,

23:55

if anything, feels really different than the movies

23:57

that you've done previously. scale

24:00

of it. I

24:02

mean, hundreds of

24:04

people working on this thing, you know, and

24:07

having a sound stage with

24:09

literally hundreds of people making

24:13

the story you're trying to tell come to life.

24:15

So the scale is a big part of it.

24:17

That's Chakruti Iwoji. He

24:19

plays the high evolutionary, the villain

24:22

in this year's Guardians of the Galaxy, volume

24:24

three. It's the

24:26

32nd Marvel Studios film in 15

24:28

years. Chakruti says

24:30

Marvel today is as big as it gets,

24:33

the ultimate Hollywood prestige, a

24:36

long way from the scrappy days of Iron

24:38

Man. It's incredible

24:40

to look around and go, I'm actually working with the

24:42

best, the top of the field in every department,

24:44

you know, you just go, oh my God, I'm

24:46

at the top. I've sort of reached

24:48

the mountain top, at least for these next few months.

24:51

And the fact of the matter is that every aspect

24:54

of putting these movies together are

24:57

utilizing the best people in their field

24:59

in the world.

25:00

So you're really working at the

25:03

highest level in every department.

25:06

This is the Marvel that Kevin Feige has fostered

25:08

since taking full control.

25:10

It's a studio that works with A-list talent

25:13

and invests as much money as needed to make

25:15

the comics come to life.

25:17

So for me, as an actor

25:19

coming in to do my part in that big

25:21

machine, is to deliver because

25:24

you're working with the top end of everything,

25:26

you know, you can't not be

25:29

impressed and buoyed by the

25:32

grand scale of everything around you beforehand.

25:36

The superhero genre has evolved into the

25:38

most dominant in the film industry. It

25:41

draws not only the best talent, but also

25:43

a lot of the ticket sales. Last

25:46

year, half of the top 10 box

25:48

office movies were either Marvel or DC

25:50

adaptations. Since the success

25:53

of Endgame, Feige has doubled down

25:55

on going big.

25:57

More characters, bigger fights.

26:00

Forget the cinematic universe. Now

26:02

we're talking about a cinematic multiverse.

26:05

But Marvel's rise to the top hasn't come without

26:07

scrutiny. One vocal critic

26:10

is legendary film director Martin Scorsese.

26:13

He says the success of superhero movies has

26:15

come at a cost and that it's hurting

26:17

cinema. Here he is in 2019. The

26:21

value of a film that's like a theme

26:23

park film, for example, in a Marvel-type

26:25

pictures, where the theaters become

26:27

amusement parks, that's a different experience.

26:29

And it's like, it's not even, it's a saying

26:32

earlier, it's not cinema, it's something else.

26:36

Feige, in a podcast interview with a Hollywood

26:39

reporter, pushed back on Scorsese. I

26:41

think that's not true. I think it's unfortunate.

26:44

I think myself and everybody that works

26:46

on these movies loves cinema,

26:48

loves movies, loves going to the movies, loves

26:51

to watch a communal experience in

26:53

a movie theater full of people.

26:57

But even people who love superhero movies

27:00

are starting to have concerns. Some

27:02

fans we spoke to had problems with the slew

27:05

of new Marvel TV shows on the streaming

27:07

service Disney+. What about

27:09

all the Marvel TV shows? There's a lot of them now. Do you keep

27:11

up with them all? I tried, but there is a lot.

27:13

The movies are at least a little bit easier because there's a

27:15

big break in between, but I

27:18

haven't been able to keep up with TV shows. There's

27:20

too much. I feel like right

27:23

now it's just a cash grab. I

27:25

feel like it's lost its magic because there's so

27:27

much pumping out. You don't have time to

27:29

process what you just watched because there's another Marvel

27:32

show. Superhero Fatigue is kind of

27:34

more or less settling in, so to speak. In 2020,

27:37

when alone, there were the TV

27:39

shows WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter

27:42

Soldier, Loki, What If,

27:44

and Hawkeye.

27:46

And there were also the films Black Widow,

27:48

Shang-Chi, Eternals, and

27:51

Spider-Man, No Way Home.

27:53

Did your eyes glaze over? That's 34

27:55

hours of Marvel content

27:58

in just one year. It's

28:01

more than just an issue of quantity, though. Marvel

28:03

has also had issues with quality.

28:06

2021's Eternals

28:08

and this year's Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantomania,

28:11

were the first Marvel movies rated rotten

28:13

on Rotten Tomatoes.

28:15

That means more than 40% of critics had

28:17

a negative review.

28:19

Eternals was also Marvel's first theatrically

28:22

released movie to lose money, according

28:24

to a person with knowledge of the studio's finances.

28:29

After more than a decade of unprecedented

28:31

critical and commercial success, these are

28:34

signs that Marvel is starting to slip. To

28:37

figure out why, I talked to two of the world's

28:39

foremost experts on nerd culture.

28:41

I've been a nerd for

28:44

as long as I can remember.

28:47

I don't think there's anybody who was cool and then became

28:49

a nerd. That's not how it usually works. If you're a nerd,

28:51

you've been a nerd. Ooh, interesting.

28:54

Yeah, I'll have to doodle on that

28:56

later. That's Mallory Rubin,

28:58

editor-in-chief for The Ringer. She

29:00

co-hosts pop culture podcasts with another

29:03

Marvel expert, Joanna Robinson.

29:06

I would say specifically

29:08

the X-Men were a big part of my

29:10

childhood, but I didn't get all

29:12

the way into the finer points

29:15

of Marvel until my 20s and

29:17

then as it became sort of the

29:21

pillar of our culture and that

29:23

became my profession, it became something I like to study.

29:27

Mallory and Joanna know the Marvel fandom

29:29

better than almost anyone, so

29:31

I asked them for their opinion on superhero fatigue.

29:35

I mean, I'm a glutton. I

29:37

love it, but I think that

29:40

it has become very

29:43

sincerely challenging for people to

29:45

maintain a tether to every new story in a way

29:47

that then makes it just that compounds,

29:50

right? It's difficult to enjoy the thing that comes next if

29:53

you haven't seen the thing that came before and all

29:55

of these stories build on each other in

29:57

some way. I think you definitely should.

29:59

should not feel like you have had to

30:02

have seen every Disney Plus show to date and 32

30:05

MCU movies to go watch whatever's next. That's

30:07

just a lot to ask of people.

30:09

Originally, the idea was,

30:12

well, let's make each installment must-see TV,

30:14

right? You got to see it all to

30:16

understand it. And at first, that was like a brilliant

30:19

concept to get butts and sees for like, well,

30:21

I don't know that I'm interested in Thor, but Thor is

30:23

going to be in Avengers. Like I guess I'll go see Thor,

30:25

et cetera. Now that

30:27

it's however many movies and however many

30:29

hours of television, like

30:32

that becomes such a burden. Do

30:34

you think this could balance out more and

30:37

they'll sort of perhaps play a smaller part of

30:39

our media ecosystem?

30:41

I think like not to be too

30:43

reductive about it, but I do think it just gets back

30:45

to that idea of like how good are the movies and

30:48

how good are the shows, you know, and like,

30:50

can they land it with the hits and with the new

30:52

thing they try? Am I happy that

30:54

we're getting this many superhero stories? I am. I love

30:56

them. It gives us stuff to talk about both

30:58

professionally and personally. I like that we're getting a

31:01

lot of this and meeting more characters, but it's

31:03

just almost impossible to maintain the quality

31:05

that they established as essential to the MCU

31:07

brand.

31:09

Recently, Feige told Entertainment Weekly

31:11

he plans to slow down,

31:13

especially when it comes to TV shows.

31:16

He said the pace will change so that each project,

31:18

quote,

31:19

gets a chance to shine. Some

31:22

fans and Marvel insiders who I spoke

31:24

to said they hope less content will mean higher quality.

31:28

With

31:28

so many movies and TV shows to oversee,

31:31

they said Kevin Feige is overextended.

31:34

Even Disney CEO Bob Iger recently

31:37

suggested in an investor call that Marvel needs to make

31:39

an adjustment.

31:42

You know, do you need a sequel typically work

31:44

well for us? Do

31:46

you need a third and a fourth, for instance, or

31:48

is it time to turn to other characters? There's

31:50

nothing in any way inherently off

31:53

in terms of the Marvel brand. I think we just have to look

31:56

at, you know, what characters

31:58

and stories we're mining.

31:59

A spokeswoman for Disney declined to comment.

32:03

One thing Marvel Studios has going for

32:05

it, though, is that its roster of characters

32:07

is still expanding. Several

32:10

years ago, Marvel struck a new deal

32:13

with Sony to include Spider-Man in

32:15

the MCU. And

32:17

more recently, Disney acquired many

32:19

of the assets of 21st Century Fox,

32:22

including the film rights to two of Marvel Comics'

32:24

top properties, X-Men and

32:27

the Fantastic Four. Kevin

32:29

Feige can now include them both in the Marvel

32:31

Cinematic Universe for the

32:33

first time. At the end

32:35

of the day, inside of Marvel, we

32:37

still haven't gotten the Fantastic Four. That's

32:39

coming soon, right? We still haven't gotten

32:42

the X-Men. And I think that when

32:44

we do, no matter how much fatigue

32:46

has set in in the interim, people will

32:48

be excited. And then the question will be, simply,

32:51

are those movies good? And if they are,

32:53

if they are done well,

32:56

people

32:56

will be jazzed. People will arrive

32:59

in droves to the theaters. People will talk about

33:01

those films and those shows, because surely there

33:03

will be both endlessly on the internet.

33:05

And we'll all be back saying, Marvel,

33:08

we never doubted you for a minute. And

33:20

Marvel is releasing three movies this year

33:22

and four next year, with many more in the

33:25

works. Despite its recent

33:27

stumbles, it did have a hit this spring

33:29

with the latest Guardians of the Galaxy. DC,

33:32

meanwhile, struck out in June with a flash,

33:35

which

33:35

is one of the last remnants of the Snyderverse.

33:38

The company is in the midst of rebooting its film

33:40

strategy

33:41

yet again.

33:43

It plans to launch a new cinematic universe.

33:46

And in case you were wondering,

33:48

Sony continues to cash in from their Spider-Man

33:51

deal,

33:51

the one struck by Ike and Avi in the 90s. The

33:55

animated movie Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse

33:57

was a huge hit this summer. I

34:00

saw them all. And

34:03

let's be honest, I'll probably keep seeing

34:05

superhero films. Maybe with

34:07

my kids, maybe with my friends.

34:10

If I have to, I'll go alone.

34:13

I'll also make a point to see other movies,

34:16

original movies, in theaters.

34:19

Because if there's one thing I've learned in my years

34:21

covering Hollywood, it's that while movies

34:23

are culture to us, they're business

34:26

to the studios. And like every

34:28

business, they only give us what we

34:30

demonstrate we want to buy.

34:33

But I've also learned that businesses don't always

34:35

move in a straight and rational line. It

34:38

wasn't inevitable that superheroes would rule

34:40

Hollywood and Marvel would end up in

34:42

the position it is today. What

34:45

if Ike Perlmutter hadn't bought a struggling comic

34:47

book company out of bankruptcy? What

34:50

if Sony had bought the rights to all those Marvel

34:52

characters back in the 90s? What

34:55

if David Maisel had tried to raise the money

34:58

for Marvel Studios just a few years later after

35:00

the economy crashed? What

35:03

if

35:03

Kevin Feige and Ike Perlmutter had

35:05

found a way to work together? The

35:08

entertainment business would be different. Global

35:11

pop culture would be different.

35:14

I don't think comic book movies are going anywhere, but

35:17

I think there are going to be a lot of surprises. And

35:20

I bet the story of how it happens will

35:23

continue to be at least as interesting as

35:25

the action on screen.

35:27

Jackgent for the very specific side note,

35:31

TerminatorWhat? J twisting it through the

35:33

counterpart or to prove we are talking racist. Tell

35:37

us in the comments below which one do we have to do.

35:41

Thanks

35:44

for staying clear on that, Ted,

35:50

the movie director of the 2014 Discovery stream. That

35:54

was designed by the D-Man. The

35:59

series is edited by by Catherine Brewer and

36:01

Annie Baxter. Fact-checking by Nicole

36:03

Pissulka. Sound design and mixing

36:05

by Griffin Tanner. The music

36:07

in this episode is by Bobby Lord, Griffin

36:10

Tanner, Peter Leonard, and Blue Dot

36:12

Sessions. Our theme music is by

36:14

So Wylie and remixed by Nathan Singapac.

36:17

Special thanks to Mahara Doni, Ariana

36:19

Bow, Maria Byrne, Pia Guttkari,

36:22

Kate Linebaugh, Laura Morris, Sarah

36:24

Platt, Sarah Rable, Ethan Smith,

36:27

and Catherine Whelan. We'd also like

36:29

to thank all

36:29

the fans who spoke with us for this series. And

36:32

thanks to the rest of the journal team, Rachel

36:35

Humphries, Ryan Knudsen, Jessica

36:37

Mendoza, Annie Minoff, and Ricky

36:40

Perez de la Rosa, Heather Rogers, and

36:42

Jeeva Caverba. If

36:45

you enjoyed With Great Power, the journal

36:47

has way more where this came from. Follow

36:50

us to catch our daily news show, plus

36:52

all of our journal series. That's

36:54

The Journal on Spotify, or

36:56

wherever you get your podcasts.

37:00

Thanks for listening. You're

37:02

still here?

37:10

The podcast

37:12

is over. Go home.

37:15

This isn't the MCU.

37:17

It doesn't go

37:17

on forever.