Transcript of How Iron Man Saved Marvel: David Maisel Shares the Real Story with Sean Callagy New

If he doesn't get the yes, there's no MCU.

Which was the hardest yes I've ever gotten, right? In fact, I didn't get the yes.

They had $5 million in the bank and David is talking, you're gonna spend $100 million, right? For a guy that doesn't like spending money.

Nobody wanted Thor or Captain America or this thing called Avengers, you know. People would tell me, Thor's in the public domain, you know, we don't need you for that. Or Avengers means some UK English spy series. They could have You spent $100,000 and blocked us from having Iron Man, right? I don't make money unless you make money, so give me stock options at market. And then to close it, I said, "And you can fire me at any time, whatever reason, no penalty." I announced Marvel Studios on CNBC in 2004, and our stock went down for 4 years. With Iron Man, we made it a love story with 10 minutes of action. I think that's what Warner Brothers missed, is they saw a guy in a robot suit They saw a robot suit. They didn't see the man inside the suit.

The guy who's got the drug problem that woke up in his neighbor's, like, child, daughter's room and was in jail. This is Iron Man. Yeah, who's a comedian on top of it, not an action star. If we could welcome back to the unblinded stage for the second time, um, the founder of Marvel Studios, uh, the creator of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The one and only, let's rise to our feet and welcome David Maisel. Let's hear it for David. A man that I have the honor and privilege, the honor and privilege of now calling a friend. So thank you, sir. Much gratitude.

Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you.

My friend.

He even knows what drinks that Tink and Bella and Mike like to have from Starbucks, and it's always ready in his incredible studio and home and place and things. So David, welcome back to the great state of New Jersey. It really is an honor to be here. And how are you doing today, brother?

I'm doing great. It's a pleasure to be back, Sean. Last time we did this was back in October. Right. So it's been almost 6 months and so much has happened. I know with everything you're doing and things that I'm up to and you— Sean was the first public speech that I ever did since selling Marvel. I resisted doing that and doing it with Sean and him making me feel so welcome and understanding in the story and, and the interesting things to talk about and seeing the joy in everybody hearing where Marvel came from. It brought me a lot of joy. So I, I'm so happy to be back, you know, doing this. And you sort of gave birth to a, a new side hustle for me, which is—

and by the way, if you're happy to have David back, say yes. Very good. Yes. And so, and the Side Hustle recently took you to some far away parts of the globe with some pretty interesting people.

It's, um, the most notable one was the Saudi government has a conference called FII, which is their big investor conference. And there's one in Riyadh, there's one in the States, and there's one in Europe. And they asked me to speak at their Miami event, which was about a month ago, 5 or 6 weeks ago. And it's the royal family, it's a lot of dignitaries that attend. If there's capital like that, many people surface, and not surprisingly. And, um, and so I got there and they had me the last day, um, at the end of the conference, which is normally not where you want to be because everyone's flying out to their next thing. And so I said, you know, maybe I'll go the first day instead so people can talk to me in the hallways and things. And they said, no, no, stay at the last day. There's a surprise. And what the surprise was is they announced that President Trump was gonna close the conference. And so what that meant is him speaking at 5, that everyone had to be in their seats and through security at 3. And once they announced he's speaking, other people even showed up.

And I was in one of 5 speakers right before him. And it was a group that was amazing. It was David Ellison who just bought Warner Brothers with his father for close to $100 billion. MBS is the ruler of Saudi Arabia's cousin who runs all the video game sector in Saudi Arabia. The head of FIFA with the World Cup coming. Steve Witkoff, who's our negotiator for all these wars. And I'm missing somebody there. And then me. So what I thought was going to be a casual, fun talk became this very different formal talk only for about 20 minutes about creating new mythologies, whether there could be a new worldwide mythology in today's age was the question that they wanted me to address. Um, and so that was a great experience. It went well enough where I was invited to speak in June at their FII Europe, which is in Rome this year. Wow. Yeah.

How about let's hear for that. And so it is an honor to have had you here and to be a small tiny salt particle in that journey of your impact in speaking.

Coach Gallagher.

Thank you, thank you, my brother. And so I I would love to talk to you for 40 hours. We've had the privilege of spending real time together, and this man is such a master. He is so brilliant, and that doesn't though appropriately describe him. What is he masterful at? So many things, but the dynamic of innovation, optimization, presence, storytelling, the understanding, his level 5 listening of people is remarkable. And so, and he has friends that make great pizza. So this like private room and pizza at his home, you know, out there has been truly delightful. And what I'd love you to comment on, David, 'cause we're going later tonight, and of course there's amazingly diverse political viewpoints, and we have already, you know, spoken into all of that to a degree, and we'll finish. You know, not from a political perspective, but how did you enjoy going to see Bruce Springsteen on this tour? Because a bunch of folks will be there with us tonight.

You're in for a treat. I would say this, that I've seen him not as much as Michael here, 25 times, but probably close to 20. And this was my favorite concert of all. And I think it was because he's sort of grown into— it's the same Bruce voice, You would never know he's 77 or whatever his age is, but he has become even more strong, like, and powerful in how he presents the songs. Clarence isn't there, but the band is amazing, and the saxophonist is incredible. I think it might be someone that Clarence picked to replace him.

It's his nephew, James.

His nephew. Okay. I could see that. And all of Bruce's messages are as timely as ever today as they were back in the '70s and '80s. So it just resonated so much more. It's a special concert. And he didn't have to do this concert. He announced it, what, maybe 2-month tour basically, because he really wanted to do it. He can feel it.

And would you share, and I don't want to consume a lot of our time with this, David, But what— whether or not I agree with everything Bruce is saying, some of it, much of it, all of it, and/or how he's saying it, what we advocate for so strongly in this space, and certainly on the Sean Callaghan Blind the Podcast, is for people's freedom to articulate what they believe in. Right. And Bruce does it so utterly masterfully. And there's so many things, and I'm curious to see the reactions of the folks here tonight and our certification partners that are joining us. Yes. And how even if they disagree with where he stands politically, how can they appreciate his mastery in articulating what he believes in and how attractive, how unifying? 'Cause I'm really curious, 'cause there's, again, folks on all fronts.

Yeah, and the thing I'd say to that is he, you'll hear him tonight, but the things he talks about are not really political. They're common shared values of being an American. So things like intelligence and common sense and empathy, things that shouldn't be politicized. They should just be traits that we all try to live in our lives as best as we can, and what America stands for around the world a bit. So as you said, when there's difference of opinions on details and on policies and things like that, there normally is a unifying agreement on trying to make everyone's life here better. And safer and shared values that you just teach your kids and that we all, you know, would love to live up to. And finding that shared agreement is so— and it's true in negotiations and building a business. There's always people who don't see your vision or they disagree with it even. And instead of walking away, you find that point of shared shared thoughts or shared assumptions. And normally once that gets to that level, the connection becomes closer. And it doesn't always work, but it can sometimes, you know, work to whatever you're trying to achieve in that, that business transaction or what you need from somebody to get a yes.

Well, amen to that, brother. And we always honor Source here. So And I think this is a great transition into a next section and to be at the beginning, but the meaningful work that you did with Marvel. Before I do, I just want to honor Dan Fleischman. We don't know each other without Dan. And Mike Vesuvio for being such an amazing friend and co-creator and all the things. 100%.

Yeah.

So thank you. Let's hear it for Dan and Mike. Just for a second. Yeah. So as you're sharing this, what really landed for me, you know, our discussion of Bruce is how it's not not what you had to begin to think about when you stepped into the world of Marvel, you know, and I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that there were, Marvel was selling 5,000 Iron Man comics per month. Just think of what would, if you would have thought the number Marvel was selling per month of Iron Man when the Iron Man— before the Iron Man movies were made, but just a few years before, if you would have thought it was a lot more than 5,000 comics a month, say yes. Yes. Me too. I would have— somebody asked me like, hey, how many Iron Man comics a month do you think Marvel was selling? I don't know, my gut reaction might have been 100,000 a month, right? You know, something like that.

So the only thing that reached that level back then was X-Men. And Spider-Man, because of the movies.

So you have this property, this ecosystem of 5,000 a month. And so obviously, if people are reading Iron Man comics monthly, they have a pretty deep love for Iron Man and a pretty clear perspective on what Iron Man should be to them. and now you're going to decide what movie to make, and you're stepping in, and you have to build something for Marvel. How do you select Iron Man? How do you take something that only 5,000 people per month are reading, take this to make money, honor these folks, not make them enemies, so, and I know we told, a lot of the story before, but maybe let's start there, you know, or half a step back from there. This is your job now. You're being brought in. You have an idea, or it's about to be your job. Please, David, take us back.

Yeah, and I'll start with the point where, you know, there was a whole process that Sean and I discussed last time of where the idea came from. For the MCU. Now the word universe, cinematic universe, is used a lot. But that didn't exist back then. And the studios made the movies. And if you owned IP, you licensed it to the studios. And they would spend the $200 million to make the movie, and they'd have full creative control, and they'd keep 90% 8% of the profits.

Can I just like make sure this is landing for everybody? So David, am I hearing you correctly that what would happen is, and this was Spider-Man?

Yes, Spider-Man to Sony. Yep.

And X-Men to Fox. Yeah. And I guess this X-Men to Fox, and this would have also been in on the DC side, this would have been the original Batman movie. I mean, DC wasn't making the Batman movie. Am I correct or not correct?

DC in the Dark Knight trilogy. Yeah, they, they did make the movie.

I mean, going back to Michael Keaton, the original movie, was that a licensed?

No, no, they owned because Warner Brothers owns DC.

Got it.

So they were, you know, now Marvel, I sold to Disney. So it's similar to where DC was with Warner Brothers. There's the capabilities and capital were there.

So, but so with Marvel though, at that point, they're licensing out X-Men, they're licensing out Spider-Man, and what they were saying is they were gonna make relatively little money after all the things, and they had very little creative control. Am I hearing that correctly?

Exactly, and because they would license to different studios, those properties were, were siloed in each of those studios. So you couldn't bring the characters together and create an Avengers movie or create a connected universe. And so the big vision was, as a Marvel fan and as somebody who wanted to make big movies and somebody who wanted them to make money, that the way to do it would be to get the rights back as much as possible, take the characters that had not been licensed at that time. Nobody wanted Thor or Captain America or this thing called Avengers. You know, people would tell me, Thor is in the public domain. You know, we don't need you for that. Or Avengers means some UK English spy series. You know, they didn't quite get it. And so that was great because I had those properties to work with. Iron Man was actually at Warner Brothers for about 8, 9 years. Wow. As a license deal for like $50,000 they paid, and they never thought it was worthy to make it into a movie. Okay? And they didn't see it. They— people ask me about that, but they just let it sit there.

So eventually they let the rights run out even after I announced Marvel Studios. They could have spent $100,000 and blocked us from having Iron Man. Right? They could have— sometimes you want to play offense, sometimes you want to play defense. And if they had put on the defense hat for a while, they might think, oh, I don't really want to make an Iron Man movie, but we'll delay David from having it for 5 years or 10 years. And that probably would have been a smart chess move for them. Luckily, they didn't and got it back. And then, you know, the idea of a comic book company making a $100 million-plus movie was heresy at the time. No one did that. And frankly, they don't still. Like Barbie is owned by Mattel, but they license it to Warner Brothers. So they didn't get much profit from the movie. They got toy sales, maybe a higher degree of Barbie sales that year or afterwards. In the same way we get higher Spider-Man toy sales after a Sony movie. But the zero-based thinking, which took a lot of work and studying up into when I was 32 at this time.

So it was school and graduate school and almost 8, 9 years of working in consulting and then in Hollywood at the studio, Disney, and the talent agencies soaking up information to get the inspiration finally to— which was over a weekend— that, wait, wow, if Marvel controlled its characters, it's a natural universe. You get to know the characters. You want to see them in every movie. You want to stay involved with the plot. And so if one movie works, like Iron Man, instead of just two sequels like most films, there's 100 sequels or quasi-sequels. And that asymmetrical risk-reward was incredibly attractive as a business, and incredibly— the idea of connecting the characters as a fan was incredibly attractive as a creative thing to do. And that all went into— convincing a man named Ike Perlmutter to at least give me a shot, right, at coming into Marvel, which was the hardest yes I've ever gotten, right? In fact, I didn't get the yes. In fact, my meeting—

Could you contextualize who is Ike?

Ike Perlmutter at the time was already a billionaire. He's a tough Israeli guy from the Mossad war in '68. 1967, but he was a turnaround guy. He had famously bought Remington when it was bankrupt and turned it around, things like that. And he acquired Marvel in 1999 out of bankruptcy court for like $30 million, right? So he had good vision on that, but he really cared about selling toys and he doesn't like to spend money and he's, he's a very difficult guy. To work with, but he and I fortunately have a great relationship, and it helps when you make somebody a lot of money. But it was a lot to get there. In fact, once I had the inspiration for Marvel doing its movies—

And just so, acquire for $30 million, and then—

Then he took it public again, and at the time I met him, it was about $100 million. Market cap.

Got it.

On the back of the Spider-Man license and things like that.

So $30 million to $100 million market cap and then sold to Disney for $4 billion.

Yeah, really $10 billion with the stock.

With stock, $10 billion. $4 billion cash.

About 7 years later. Yeah, $10 billion, 7 years later.

Can we hear it for that? Talk about asymmetric return.

So though I did speak to Bob Iger last week, and I introduced a friend to him.

Do you guys know who Bob Iger is?

Yeah.

Yes. Who is Bob Iger?

He's the CEO of Disney, and he was actually my boss back in '96, '97, so I knew him well, and I love Disney. Not as much as Sean, but close to Sean. And I do love Disney. And so when I decided to sell Marvel, now we're fast forwarding, I didn't shop it to any other studio. I just went right to Bob. Had a secret meeting with him, and within an hour we came up with a deal. And because he gave us stock, legally, we were a public company, you have to shop it to get the best price for shareholders. But what I learned is if you have something that's subjectively valued, like stock, the board can make a decision that that's the best thing to do. And having worked at Disney, I knew the stock at $25 was severely undervalued. and that it was at least a double when the economy recovered in 2010. Now it's plateaued for the last 10 years, but it reached $200. Now it's at like $110. So there was an arbitrage there too. And it also allowed Ike to be liquid where he was illiquid. He owned 60% of Marvel, the public company.

But all that being said, the funny story I was going to tell is, I was at a museum gala and I introduced a friend of mine to Bob and I said, "This is the man I sold my company to." He said, "Well, actually I stole it." I was like, "Geez, you don't have to say that." Just to let this land for a second, company acquired out of bankruptcy for $30 million, got to $100 million market cap.

And then sold for $10 billion. Like, that is innovative optimized value multiplication. And in the beginning, how crazy did everybody think you were? You know, we had the stories of Walt Disney and Disney's folly and making Snow White, and then Disney's crazy to build Disneyland. But people called you crazy as well.

Yeah, and it's, it's hard to, to fathom that now because it seems obvious, right, with Marvel looking back. But the only reason I got the chance to do this in retrospect is that it wasn't because of my resume at the time. I had never made a movie before. I was smart, had a good—

and like, imagine selling this. Yeah, I'm a Harvard MBA, which is you, David, correct? I've never made a movie before. But now I think you should create like Marvel Studios. And I've never created a studio either. So I've never made a movie, I've never created a studio.

Right.

And I've never raised money. Never raised money. And Ike, you're this extremely masterful, difficult person who doesn't like to spend money, but let's go build a studio. Am I hearing that?

Exactly. And so I, he actually, my meeting with Ike, funny enough, was at Mar-a-Lago in in 2003, and Ike was and still is one of President Trump's 2 or 3 best friends, social friends, and I went to meet, have lunch with Ike, but a third person joined us for 2 hours, which was Donald Trump, and the reason he joined at the time was purely because he was about to do Apprentice and enter the Hollywood world, and he knew Ike had some young kid coming talking about Hollywood. And so it was a pretty amazing lunch and it was going nowhere. I pitched this, it was going nowhere. I didn't quite understand the perspective, which is so important to get a yes of where the person is coming from and their values. And what their trigger points could be, I kept saying things that were repulsive to Ike. Like, "You're gonna spend money. You're gonna spend $100 million even though you only have $5 million in the bank account." And where you goin'?

'Cause this is, right, we're in the world of yes causing, which I used to call us innovation optimization. They had $5 million in the bank. And David is talking, "You're gonna spend $100 million." For a guy that doesn't like spending money.

Yes, please. You have to use both sides of the paper and reuse your paper clips. And doesn't like risk. Didn't want popcorn at the premiere of Iron Man. So anyways, but understanding your partner, understanding the person is so important in your personal life and in business life. And I had not realized, it wasn't very public at that point about Ike. He's become a much more known figure because he became the second biggest owner of Disney and because of his friendship now with President Trump. But the, so it was going nowhere. In fact, I was going backwards, you know, and I kept talking about Hollywood, which rightfully, nobody should trust, right? Because you invest in Hollywood, your money's normally gone. And there's games, and there's a lot of people there with egos and a little bit of narcissistic type of attitudes. It's definitely a strange town. And so here comes a Hollywood person pitching on risking money. It was just Really not going anywhere. What I realized is, luckily, that I was dead in the water. So I threw out one last offer that he couldn't say no to, and Trump was witness to this. And to this day—

Oh, is this a crazy story? If you like, this is a crazy story, say yes. Yes. Like, if you've seen a Marvel movie, say yes.

Yes.

If he doesn't get the yes—

There's no MCU.

Yeah, there's no MCU.

Yeah, there's no Avengers because he would have licensed the properties out over the next 6 months or a year. And those deals are in perpetuity unless the other party volunteers to give it back. So I said, listen, just hire me.

I've been to Disney Florida. There are no Marvel characters, right? But there are in California because Marvel licensed the characters to Universal. East of the Mississippi, correct?

You got it.

And so—

Sean has the best memory of anyone I've ever met. No, no, thank you, thank you.

And so, yeah, so when we went to— I took Selena to Disneyland Florida, and she actually noticed this. So we were in— I'm sorry, Disneyland California, and we saw Spider-Man, and she actually loves Spider-Man. And we went this time to Disney World, And her cousin is a crazy Spider-Man fan. He was coming and she's like, Kevin's so excited to see Spider-Man. I said, well, honey, he's not in Disney World, Florida. And she's like, why? He's in Disneyland in California. And so I began to discuss with my 4-year, 11-month, and 30-day-old, the day before her birthday, daughter licensing deals between studios and mentioned you. But yes, back to you.

And it's even worse because Universal's theme park right next to Disney World has it in Orlando. And so every time now Disney makes a Marvel movie, they're making people want to go to their competitor's theme park more. It's a weird thing. The— yeah, it's— and so what I said to Ike is hire me. "Give me a chance to show you what I can do." I know he doesn't— at that point I picked up he doesn't want to pay money for things. So I said, "Pay me a very small salary just so I can pay my rent, and I don't make money unless you make money. So give me stock options and market." And then to close it, I said, "And you can fire me at any time, whatever reason." No penalty. So none of this for cause, not for cause. It was like he literally to this day says, I couldn't say no to that. I had a free option to look at you and I don't pay you unless you make me more wealthy and I can fire you anytime.

Unbelievable.

So that's how I got in. And he almost fired me at least 8 times over the next 6 years. And I almost quit 6 times.

How soon was the first one? Like, so you started—

It was probably within a month.

Was it paper clips and paper?

No, it would be my passion and tenacity and him wanting me to have other priorities in the company than the studio, which for the first year, I— I took seriously and, you know, realized I had to sort of earn my stripes. It was my board of directors was a bunch of 70 and 80-year-old turnaround guys, you know, bankruptcy guys. So, and then, but I remember every board meeting I would raise the studio. And the second time I almost got fired when I was told, don't, ever talk about a movie studio again at a board meeting, or you're never going to be invited again unless we have zero risk and all the upside, which doesn't normally happen in business, right? So that was— and then I scurried for a year to— luckily there was a bond bubble in 2004, and so I got a deal with a— for $525 million of debt financing, so we kept all the equity.

That's unbelievable.

Without great terms that I and the board can say no to. No non-recourse, no collateral to speak of.

So we love movies, we love the power of story, but what you're hearing from David right now is how critically important it is to understand money and value.

Yeah.

The innovative mastery of all the different ways to share and look at value. And if we're uncomfortable at, um, these diverse areas of mastery, we're not going to achieve the things— which is, as a footnote for everybody, if that's not your mastery, you're not David. You're not— not only Harvard MBA— Harvard didn't make David. Harvard, I'm sure, taught David some things, but this is a man who developed the muscle, the skill of discerning value, being creative, which you're going to ask some questions about how, why. But while it's not David yet in your pocket, Athena, everybody out here, you can certainly masterfully uplevel where you are to begin to think of like, hey, if I was David Maisel, and I'm looking at this thing through the prism of Marvel. What are 10 different ways I could assess this ecosystem merger to create unique sharers of value if these people don't want to write a check and I really want this to happen? Or if they should write a check and they're not seeing it, how can we communicate about it? Use the tools that way. Is that landing? If it is, say yes. Okay, so, so, um, yeah, back to you, Dave.

And what I'd love to get to in a few minutes, if you wouldn't mind, is a powerful question about all of this. Um, I'd love you to finish this point. Yeah, but about how much you might be undervaluing, undervaluing yourself in some of this, because something dawned on me. And let me go to— and then we can go back if we need to. It's this: so you took this property, this, um, what you saw to be a potential cinematic universe Right. Um, but I wonder, and has anybody ever asked this question, could you have taken any number of properties and done this? Like, how much of this was your mastery as, um, visionary of the complete Cinematic Universe, and what you then did once you made that decision? Like, we're gonna take this and make it a cinematic universe because Tony Stark in the Iron Man comics wasn't Robert Downey Jr. You did that. And I didn't think the last time we spoke, and I think Robert and Robert, right? And Robert, right? And, you know, uh, Pepper wasn't Gwyneth Paltrow, right? And so, and I know you're an incredibly, um, humble man, and I think you're at times a falsely modest man, meaning you diminish your accomplishments.

But it just dawned on me, yeah, like, that was really interesting, but it was so interesting that it was in bankruptcy, the Marvel property.

And Sean knows there's an article right outside my office, um, from the New York Times in 2007, a year before Iron Man came out talking about all the reasons Marvel Studios would fail. So I leave that right by my office to remind me of that era. In fact, I announced Marvel Studios on CNBC in 2004, and our stock went down for 4 years.

How long? 4 years. How long?

4 years.

How long? 4 years. Yes.

It was worse for me because— As I mentioned, all my upside was stock options that were now under market for 4 years. But Ike and I talked about this, and once I started showing what I could do and he got confidence, he ended up buying back a third of the company. At that cheap price, which was very valuable when we sold it to Disney. So it was taking lemonade and making lemons from it. You know, having faith in situation instead of getting depressed if your stock goes down. If you really believe in the fundamentals of an investment, that's the time, like Warren Buffett would say, where you buy it on sale, you know, from where it was. And so we bought back Marvel stock on sale. But to your question, it's a really good one. Sean, and I think— I don't believe any group of IP, no matter how talented the producer or the visionary is, can become what Marvel became, a cinematic universe. There's elements that need to be in it. And I like to combine analytics with creativity. And this is an important point because in my sector of Hollywood, you, as a Harvard MBA, you are viewed as the suit, as the business.

And if you talk creative, you're out of your arena. And if you're a creative person and you talk about business, you're like diminishing your creative magic that people might trust in you. I love both. And I was known, 'cause I came with my Harvard MBA and I got my first job because of that with Mike Ovitz, as that guy, right? The business guy. And in fact, when I was at Disney, I was with Kevin Mayer, our mutual friend in corporate development and strategic planning, right? And I knew that creatively was really where my passion was. And the only way I could do both analytics and creative was to have my own studio and make myself chairman. So the reason I had the, the thought to do Marvel Studios was I wanted to solve that puzzle. And then secondly, I knew I could try to become studio chairman. They're the only people that can be whatever they want to do because they're the boss. And I could work my way up one of the six studios, but that would take 20 years. And more importantly, I would have lost my soul. I would have had to become a different person.

And Marvel was a cocoon for me where I had my, you know, I could, I could play as studio chairman and not change the playfulness and the way I wanted to be personality-wise. So when I think about universes, Marvel, I didn't have to look at a second one because I just instinctively saw they live in the same universe in the comics. It— these characters are so deep in terms of who they are, even outside of being superheroes, that there was— and it was a combination that the movies would be new to most 99% of the world. So they discover it. And discovery is so enjoyable for people. They discover with their friends or their kids or their parents. But there's a legacy that it's built on so that people realize, wow, there's like gravitas to it and stuff I can geek out on and go into. So it had that, that great combination of legacy, but still new to people and a natural universe. And, you know, after Marvel, I quickly found something else I thought could be not a universe, but elevate IP to a point that people would be surprised by. And that was with all things Angry Birds.

And at the time, it was just those dots on the screen. And, and I went to the owners and they were about to license the movie. I said, no, no, we'll make it. And they had so much cash from the game that raising money there was easy. They just had treasury cash to use for about $75 million. And it was fun to invent a mythology. And everyone thought that movie was gonna fail because in 2016 when it came out, Angry Birds had collapsed in popularity. They didn't navigate going from paid games to free games in the way other competitors did. And the brand wasn't cool anymore. And so that for me was gratifying because it was another surprise. And doing it again. But then after 2016 and actually after the sale of Marvel, I got approached with everything, you know, hey, can you help us with this to become a universe? And, and said no to everything because it didn't meet what I really thought it would be. And then I was fortunate, which we can get into later, to find something that James Cameron really loved and my favorite comic book artist. Who I collected, and when James Cameron stepped aside, I was able to grab it, and that's what I'm working on now.

So you have to have the fundamental pieces in place, but then it's a lot of decisions and a lot of vision that have to be done. It's not as complicated as Elon's spaceships, You know, he famously talks about there's like 20,000 things that have to go right on any space launch. And if one of them doesn't, the whole thing falls apart. And, you know, it's not as complicated as that. But to go from the IP to something that's a new worldwide mythology or something that people really love in that deep way requires a lot, a lot of decisions. And one of them you raised earlier, like, how do you take something that's got dedicated fans and make them happy at the same time bring it to the world? And so with Iron Man, we made it a love story with 10 minutes of action. And it was like an old-fashioned love story where, like, from the '50s, where two people love each other, but they won't admit it. You know, Robert Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow. And you're an audience saying, kiss already, you know? And they don't. And adding in humor with letting— I made a decision that had really never been done.

In Hollywood, you freeze a script. You freeze a script before you shoot the movie, because every day on a live-action movie is $400,000 or $500,000. And so if you miss the day, you have to spend another half a million. And there's unions, there's rules. And so you don't want, you want people changing dialog, 'cause that could screw things up. But I left an hour a day in the schedule for Robert Downey Jr. to improvise. And I'd say at least half of the comedy in Iron Man came out of him riffing and saying funny things. It was dangerous. And 'cause once an actor starts doing that, They keep wanting to do that, and you could miss your days unless their lines get taken, you know? Yeah.

So, Deepak, I ask this. So how, you know, in that frame, you have Iron Man, you have these properties, and you're making a superhero movie that you turn into a love story with 10 minutes of action.

Right. I could only afford 10 minutes as well. That made it easier.

But now in this, this conversation of innovation optimization, how do you decide to do that? You know, what, what was it? You know, if 100 people look at Iron Man in the comics, um, they're not— a million people look at Iron Man in the comics, they're not making the movie you made, right? And this is one of the greatest superhero movies ever made by so many critical reviews financial success, all of it. How do you get to that?

And I'll get in a second. There's a question before that, which is why Iron Man is the first movie.

Yeah, please.

And that was also— I'm proud of as a vision because a lot of people recommended, you know, you have one shot and that go with Avengers, go with your biggest commercial property and not rely on just one superhero. You know, bring everyone together. Then some people will like Iron Man, some people like Thor. You know, you attract more people.

And forgive me for keep jumping in. I'm just like, want to really contextualize. So what I'm hearing you say, and what you're hearing David say, I believe, is that he opted not to go with the ecosystem at Marvel of Avengers with 100,000 people, um, Right. Reading monthly, but one with 5,000. And this is landing on me. I can't even imagine the feedback you were getting for that.

Like, oh, we had many debates internally. Yeah, many debates with the board and with my team. Um, but the feeling was, number one, it was best to introduce the characters in their own movies so that you have 2 hours to get to know them, rather than if they're in a 2-hour movie together, you maybe have 15 minutes with each of them And so if people fell in love with Tony Stark, with Thor, with Captain America, with Hulk, then you bring them together in The Avengers, there's so much more ties to the customer, and you're giving them something to look forward to. They love the characters individually. The risk with that is if Iron Man failed, we're not sitting here today. So it was a— You know, it was easier for me because I, I knew that my mother, my girlfriend at the time, they would not go see just a regular superhero movie, you know, comics movie. So, but I knew Tony Stark was such an interesting character outside of the suit of armor. And I think that's what Warner Brothers missed, is they saw a guy in a robot suit. They saw a robot suit.

They didn't see the man inside the suit. And it's the man inside the suit, which was so, so important and such a compelling story. And, and so we went with Iron Man. And then in making these decisions about how to both show the movie and market the movie and the casting, That's where, when you talk about instinct and combining with— when you're focused on something that you're passionate about and you don't deviate, somehow you get so much information because you're looking at everything from the prism of what your goal is. And so when I quit McKinsey and came to Hollywood, All I did for the next 6, 7 years was think about how to make another Star Wars. Right. And that's what inspired me. And, and how can I do it in a way that it wasn't just 3 movies at the time, but that could be many, many movies. And I would just soak all that information up, you know, little things like I was able to do a Broadway show before I did Marvel and I had a lot of success. I won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1999 for my first Broadway show.

And what is a Harvard MBA winning Tony Awards, creating the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right? And then taking a video game that was incredibly popular, then failed, and turning it into an incredibly commercially successful movie, Angry Birds. And there's like dot, dot, dot, and much more.

But please. Yeah, and one of the things I learned from Broadway— Broadway is a great medium because You take it on the road outside of New York. We went to Boston, we went to Chicago, we went to LA, and you're changing the show every night, and you're seeing audience reaction right away, right? And the reviewers have a pact, which I guess isn't legally binding, that they won't review the movie until you say it's opening night in New York. So you even have another month or two in New York to fine-tune the show before the powerful reviewers come in. And I realized halfway through this road trip with the show that the beginning had to be amazing and the end had to be incredible. So everything in between has to be good. But what people, they, if they don't feel into it, if you don't open their minds to their experience in the beginning, and if you don't close with something that causes them to literally glee with excitement as they're leaving the theater, you're missing a huge opportunity. So when I went into Iron Man, I really worked on the first scene and the last scene.

And, you know, we have the first scene, he gets blown up. So there's a dramatic thing that happens.

How do you know that? I mean, I couldn't agree more, but how did you know that?

It was, it was observation and testing. Combined with then thinking through psychology why that would be the case. And I realized it's the case with everything. You meet somebody new, if the first couple minutes are just person's head down and nothing happening, it's hard to recover from that. And it's always good to end with something. Even all of us go into long business meetings and It could be 2 hours long or an hour long with somebody, and it can get into topics and have a different energy flow. But then at the end, if you're full of energy and talking about referring back to things that they said, showing them that you listened and seeing them as a person and talking about future things, that's what people remember. And so it's experience. Testing, trying to understand why, and then trying to— and that creates what sometimes people call instinct. Like when people ask me, why did you have the vision for Marvel when no one else had it? I don't really— I can't really answer that. But it wasn't just like I sat an ivory tower and the idea popped in my head. I had worked so hard learning the industry and that gave me a better chance to have the vision and the things that people would say are very hard to get.

And then once you have the vision, it's nasty to stay with it and make sure you don't get distracted or give it up too soon. Here, I knew people would be walking into Iron Man, I felt, thinking, "Another superhero movie. How's this going to be different? You know, who is this Marvel Studios making their own movie?" So when we started with AC/DC, Back in Black, and that rock and roll was going, and The people just had— they hadn't heard that before in the beginning of a movie. And then we ended, if you remember, with him surprising everybody, including comic fans, where Tony Stark never says he's Iron Man. He keeps the— Iron Man's his, like, bodyguard. He says, "I am Iron Man." And that just threw everyone for a loop. And then we end with Ozzy Osbourne, "I am Iron Man," and people are dancing out of the theater. And then we gave a post-credits scene too with Sam Jackson saying, "The Avengers Initiative." That was just inspiration that Kevin Feige, my president of production, had actually after we finished shooting. And we hadn't planned it, and we had to call all the actors back for half a day and shoot that scene.

Wow. And that was the birth of that, which is now common with a lot of films, having some special special scene at the end. So it's a— I'm very proud of the vision, and it's been fun to replicate it. Broadway was another sort of early version of that to fine-tune that show. We were an underdog there, too, for Best Musical that year. I never thought it would win that, but—

And which show was that, David?

It was a show called Fosse. Which is Bob Fosse's great choreographer, and it was his life told through—

How cool was David? Make the sound of how cool David is. It's crazy. Do you ever wake up and be like, "I'm cool"?

That's why I love sitting here with you, Sean. It gives me— I told this to Sean, I'm not gonna mention names here, but a very prominent Hollywood famous titan producer who's a very tough man, is known for losing his temper and being a bit of a, no better word to say than asshole at times. He got to know me and he would say to me, David, you're you, So don't be 100% me, but try to be 10% me. And it's— I'm happy I was able to achieve what I did without becoming that, because it's at the end of the day how you feel when you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning is priceless. And— but the— regarding Fosse, if you haven't seen a movie called All That Jazz, Check it out. And that was the inspiration for that show. And yeah, it's a very good question. There's so many decisions that had to get made. The casting of Robert, who had just been in jail a year and a half ago for very heavy drug usage. He even woke up in his neighbor's, one of their bedrooms one night.

I think his neighbor's child bedroom.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

I'll say, you will— Imagine going to all these people again, don't like to spend money, don't like risk. You know, yeah, the guy who's got the drug problem that woke up at his neighbor's, like, child, daughter's room.

And was in jail.

And is in jail. This is Iron Man.

Yeah.

Who's a comedian on top of it, not an action star. Like, dude, like, un— and what was it about—

You know, it was, it was— seen a movie called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and if you watch that film he did before Iron Man, you see the glimmers of Tony Stark in that character. And then knowing that Robert, who had won an Academy Award for, I think, Chaplin, that having an Academy Award winner in a superhero movie would create an open mind with people, like, why is he doing that? I gotta check it out. But also I knew that also Robert is— I like actors that are authentically playing roles that fit their life. And he is Tony Stark. I mean, he's a brilliant guy. He's cocky as hell. He's the kind of guy that every man wants to be best friends with and most women want to marry. And he, you know, he's a— the— the jerk that you love no matter what, you know? And that's who he is till he has some bit of a redemption as the movies progress. And so, and I saw the passion in his eyes and he was hungry because he had not really had a commercial success, you know? And so he was going to give everything to it.

And it made it easier that he would take very little money because You know, I promised he'd make money on the sequels, and he's now the highest paid actor of the past 15 years.

I mean, integrity, right? So it's not— so what David's saying, it's not that he's like, yeah, I took advantage of him. No, no, like everybody won. Yes, like everybody won huge. And, and, and another remarkable, uh, piece of this story, and this is value discernment, innovation optimization, the magic of yes pausing. Are you receiving value from this conversation, team? Yeah. So how about this, um, if you don't mind speaking to— because we've had this conversation, David— is the profitability of Iron Man versus, um, the Dark Knight movies that were very successful, right? Maybe even outgrossed. But could you share some of that? So not only do you have this beautiful creativity, but it's how Do you make money doing it? And again, Robert Downey Jr. won. Like, people won all over the place. But watch this, please.

It's— I am also very competitive. So when I'm running Marvel, I wanted to really win. And to show you how delusional this thinking was, even my board had no faith in the Iron Man movie the day it opened. So we had a board meeting in LA, which was the first one ever. Marvel's New York-based. And the chairman of the board came up to me and said, "Ike wants you to know that if the movie doesn't do well, it's okay. We'll make money on the toys. And the board has voted that if the movie breaks even, You get a half a million dollar bonus. So their bar was breaking even, right? Which was not a high bar in this situation. But my goal—

What were you thinking and feeling in that moment?

I was thinking, yeah, thank you. It's like, I'm gonna go spend it. No, it was a combination. It was like, really? You don't have the trust in it? To thank you for that, to it's sort of charming, like that's— that they thought about that, right? That they thought about— it was a very human touch, like trying to calm— to set my expectations. It was— most boards don't necessarily think about that too much. So it was a funny element, and the— my goal was to beat DC. And I love comics, by the way. I'm a big DC fan too. But at the time, they were my competition. And I knew— and I wanted to— I was very afraid of trying to get— surmount them. And I wanted to beat Dark Knight. But we didn't. Iron Man did like $600 million and change. And Dark Knight, which was a great movie, Chris Nolan, Christian Bale, did over a billion. However, Most people look at the wrong information in things, and asking what's the real bottom line, you know, you can get distracted by sound bites or box office numbers, which people still just report box office, not profitability.

But if you look at the numbers, they did a billion plus, we did $600 million roughly. They spent 200 and I think $25 or $30 million on Dark Knight. We spent $109 million.

But wait, there's more.

Yeah. Third, second, they gave 30% gross, meaning off the top of the revenues, 30% independent of profitability went to the director and actor, 15% to Christian Bale and 15% to Chris Nolan. I gave 0%. To my actors or my director for Iron Man. And then to make it worse, I kept 100% of the equity. So we had 100% of the upside. DC, which I still don't understand why, sold off half of Batman to a essentially financing entity called Legendary Studios for a cost, you know. And so you just do the math on those three things. We made a significant amount more money on that, on the movie. And then we also, I did it and we did it in a way where we controlled, Marvel controlled the property. So we could make Iron Man again quicker, we could do whatever we want. We didn't have a director who was final cut, they say, who's got the final say on a movie. And normally if the movie does well, a final say on how the characters are used. So in our case, we had complete freedom to use the characters, which became the MCU. In DC case, they got delayed many years trying to keep Chris Nolan part of the family, understandably.

And that delayed when they were able to do Justice League and things like that. So it gave us more time to build our base. So a lot of those things, I still wanted to win the box office thing, but because then I'd go out, you know, the next week and somebody would say, "They killed you at the box office." And I'd say, "Yeah, but..." And no one really wanted to listen to all the buts at the time.

But just, so my takeaway for everybody out there is David is focused not only on the magic of the storytelling and arc, like lessons for the moment, is we all talk about the power of storytelling. So if anybody in this room is listening to this, or anybody's listening to the podcast, the prism of like, okay, cool, like made movies, great storyteller. We all need to be great storytellers. Every ecosystem merger, every great sale is on the other side of an integrous, masterfully told story. If that's landing, please say yes. And all yeses are not created equally. David is in the micro, micro distinctive detail of masterfully creating outcomes that were economically profitable, that created lever 5 disposable income, massively profitable ventures. This man wins. He's not just a creative master, he's both. He's a value-driven discernment integris master. Heck, they sold it for $10 billion. The guy that bought it for $10 billion, Bob Iger, says, thanks, David, I stole it from you. Now, I don't know that's the case. I don't think it was stolen, but it was a fair deal where Disney won and David and Marvel—

and Sean, I agree with that. I think, um, that was my perspective. You know, you want— life is long. You want to have a reputation that if someone makes a deal with you, it pays off for them. And so you don't ask, or at least I didn't ask for everything. And it's— I'm proud that he said that because it, you know—

Integrity. Let's hear it for David. Can I please— I cut you off. Please finish.

Oh, the last thing I'd say, I guess, is— The stuff you talked about in terms of being focused on the details from the business spectrum, from a zero-based approach to a business like I was doing with Hollywood to dealing with people and getting a yes or at least a chance from them. We also had fun creatively with that. It was at a great— Kevin Feige, who runs the company now, was my, my president of production. I was his boss. And I recognize— I'm really proud of recognizing his talent because he was just a junior kid in the hallways when I got there. And Ike had to support me without getting into details about changing some of the personnel at Marvel. And so I needed a new I was elevated to chairman, and I needed a president of production, and I did a battlefield promotion of Kevin. And when I sold the company, put him in charge to run it so I could do other things, and he's done a great job over the past decade plus. But he and I would look at every second of the movie and how to plus it, was our term.

There's got to be a way to plus it. We never would pat ourselves on the back. Would be like, what can we do? And, and just had a blast with, you know, there's a cave sequence in Iron Man if you watch it again, where he's in that cave with one other guy, and that's where he builds the first suit. That scene is almost 20 minutes long in the movie. And, you know, we looked at a 1-minute version, a 5-minute version, a 10-minute version, and 15-minute, 20-minute— like, we tried all these things out to see what was better, and we wanted to make it less so the movie wouldn't be so long. But that, you know, that felt like the best way to do it. When they reveal the Iron Man suit was a big decision, and we had a lot of disagreements with people. People said, you need to show it in the first half hour. You know, people don't want to wait an hour to see it. But we don't reveal it till pretty much the— into Act 2. And that was a risk, but we felt at the time that— and I strongly felt this— that the first act of Iron Man is the only place where you see Robert Downey, you see Tony Stark before he's Iron Man.

Man in all his, his proud and unproud things. And that's the chance for people to connect with Tony Stark. And if we don't have that connection, we don't have the foundation for the rest of the years and years of the MCU. And, and that people wouldn't leave the theater. And one of the nice things about theaters is very rarely do people get up and leave. So whether they like it or not, they're going to see the Iron Man suit a little bit later. And at that point, they've been looking forward to it. It's even more exciting because they had to wait, you know. And so decisions like that, we were equally sort of very detail-focused on.

And that's the same thing for your influence, all the conversation you're having out there. And is it okay if I ask a question of the audience? And there's two other quick categories I want to touch on, please, if you don't mind. So I think this has some relevance and fun for a conversation Dave and I were having. Is anybody here a Batman fan? If you are, say yes. Okay. And only please weigh in on this if you have like familiarity with what I'm sharing, right? So who is your favorite Batman actor? Don't say it.

A—

okay, don't— please don't answer yet. A, Michael Keaton. B, Val Kilmer. C— what's not saying— okay, A, Michael Keaton. B, Christian Bale. C, Ben Affleck. And D, who is the— forgive me, the current— in the new— Robert Paxton, right?

So, and famously George Clooney, for one.

Oh, thank you, George. So let's go: A, Michael Keaton. B is going to be George Clooney. C is going to be Christian Bale. D, Ben Affleck. And E, Robert Paxton. Oh, and well, we're not going to go with Adam West. Thank you. We're not gonna go with Adam West for a different reason. We're talking about people that played him in the movies. But yes, of course, Adam West. So just think about it for a second. Don't say anything. Like, who— if you're gonna see another Batman movie, who would you want to play Batman in it? Those are your choices. I'm gonna go one at a time. If it is Michael Keaton, say yes. Okay. If it is— and, and this is— you only answer if you are a fan of Batman movies, not just a fan of Michael Keaton. So you're a fan of Batman movies. One more time, who? A, Michael Keaton. Yes. Okay. B, George Clooney. C, Christian Bale.

Yes.

D, Ben Affleck.

Yes.

E, Robert Paxton.

Christian Bale won by a lot. Yeah. There was one loud one person for Ben Affleck, I heard. Very passionate fan.

So now let's go by show of hands. How many people Michael Keaton? Okay. How many people B, George Clooney? How many people C, Christian Bale? How many people D, Ben Affleck? And who, who's the one person?

Severo Michele Martínez.

Thank you, Severo.

Yes.

Yeah, you're strange, but thank you. And Robert Paxson. So what, what percentage was Christian Bale?

Oh, I'd say 70%, at least, maybe 75, 80.

Yeah, there you go. So why did I ask that? Who knows? We'll see.

So, yes, it does show the— you know, we see that same connection at Marvel to the OG actors. You know, people fell in love not just with Thor, but with Chris Hemsworth, not just with Captain America, but Chris Evans, obviously not just with Iron Man, but Tony Stark and and Robert Downey, Scarlett Johansson, you can go on and on, Mark Ruffalo. And it's now well over a decade since their first movies, but that's what people want to see, and that's what brings them good feelings. Um, and that's why you'll see not just all of them back in the next Avengers in December, which is going to be amazing, but also now that Disney bought Fox, we have X-Men back in the family. Yeah, and that's exciting. And we're bringing back all the original X-Men cast, basically, you know, from the first movies. So they're all a bit older now, but, you know, things can still get done.

It was interesting, right, David? Interesting is, was the number 2 choice Michael Keaton?

Was that— it was, yeah.

And so that would lend to your primacy conversation, right? He's the first the first person that played Batman on the big screen.

Yeah.

And what percentage of the, the audience was Michael Keaton, would you say?

All right, I'd say it was almost the remaining there besides one Ben Affleck. No George, sorry George.

Maybe 15, 20%, something like that. Yeah, yeah. So that— yeah, and that's to David's point, um, beautiful. So now the question was asked of you, um, Can there be another cinematic universe? And what's different? Why is it different? Why is it more challenging? Please, sir.

It's, um, it— that, that— and as Sean's referring to, that was the question I was asked to speak at, at, um, the Saudi summit.

Yes.

Um, especially since it was a global audience, their question was, can there be another worldwide mythology, like Marvel. Because one of the things I realized at that conference talking to the Saudi royal family, they were all obsessed with Marvel. And Princess Reema, who's the ambassador from Saudi to the US, an amazing woman, you know, she had her son and daughter there, and you could tell how much they shared the Marvel fandom together. And it really went across all geographic boundaries and and everything else. And they even said MBS, who's obviously the ruler of Saudi Arabia, is a Marvel fanatic. And that really touched me. And that's why they called it a worldwide mythology. To your question, it's possible, but I think it's a lot more difficult now. Because it wasn't easy with Iron Man, but now there's even more competition for people's time. You know, there's more social media. There's an emergence of TikTok and YouTube. There's, you know, the AI happening and people playing with AI and creating content of their own. There's games. There's so much that's distracting for people in their lives. They're streaming with so much content that didn't exist back then.

So the bar is higher, and to surpass that bar, it has to be something that has 4 or 5 ingredients. It has to be something that is differentiated from what else is out there, you know. So another live-action superhero movie with costumes and capes and so on— difficult. It has to be differentiated in terms of energy and themes and, and the way it's presented. Two, it has to be very easily identifiable to people because they have such short attention spans that it's part of a universe and these things are connected. So the visual look, for example, probably has to be signature for that property. Um, third, it has to be a natural universe. People have tried to add the word verse to everything, right? So MonsterVerse or Transformersverse. And Transformers is a great series, but it's a series of movies. It's not necessarily a universe yet. And then there's, you know, and there hasn't been one since Marvel. DC has tried many times and would have a great movie or two and then a bunch of others that didn't quite work. And so, you know, and there hasn't really been anything yet to rival Marvel or come close to that.

So you need to have something that's a natural universe, something that you can make great stories with, something that you can elevate, and something where you own the IP. And I think IP, intellectual property, has got to be at the core of it. And ideally, legacy intellectual property that, like I said, is still new to most of the world. World to be discovered. And that's hard to find. And, you know, I think that DC has a chance, a good chance now to do it under David Ellison, both because he's very dedicated. He's sort of one of us in terms of the love of these characters. And he also is an owner-operator. He's on top of every detail the way I was. It's amazing what having equity and ownership does to your attention span. And third, because it's new ownership, I think the fans like myself will give it an open mind, you know. And so if they execute on that, it could—

And this is the new ownership of Warner Brothers. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. Assuming that deal closes, which still has a few months to go and regulations to get through. But it looks— I think it looks good for them. And the second, if I had to say, maybe is something from the video game sector. But that's difficult because a lot of video games are very violent, you know, so you can't make it R-rated universe, you know, that shuts out you know, all the kids and the ability to take, you know, your child to it. So it would have to be a video game that is less violent and also has depth of characters that's not forced. Most video games don't have a huge depth to the characters in terms of personality and so on, but they have such attention now and such nostalgia value that I think something could come from that. There's been some big successes recently like Super Mario and others, but that's an area I played in that area early with Angry Birds, but even that I wouldn't call a universe. That's a series of movies, but it is characters that you want to come back and see again and again. Personally, I, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't need to or want to do something unless it was perfect.

And with this acquisition of Michael Turner's comic book company, Aspen Comics, after James Cameron let the rights expire, that's what I've been working on. And, you know, it fit my checklist. And now you're getting to know me. There was 30 points on the checklist it had to pass, you know. And my secret sauce and the reason why I thought it was great is Michael, before he passed, Michael Turner passed 10 years ago, was a superstar comic artist and has a signature look that's beautiful. And you know it, it's different from everyone else. And so the universe of Ecos will have his signature look, whether it's a movie or a theme park ride or a game. Game, you'll know you're in this world of Ecos. Amazing colors. He also has a— created a set of characters that in his time all lived in different silos. Underwater creature, other underwater species in the present day, a magical species 200 years in the future, an amazing character named Grell off on another planet. Sort of a nature type of planet, very similar to Avatar and probably an inspiration to James on, on the Avatar movie for sure. But I, over COVID, found a way to bring the characters in the same universe so that there's a reason for them to be.

And that reason is very different. It's more about a what if, you know, what if there's other life besides us, whether that life is not here, not out in space, but here on this planet. Perhaps evolution went in different directions for sentient life than just us, maybe into the ocean, maybe into a magical realm, maybe on a Galápagos type of an island. So that creature that was in space is now on Earth, all in present day. What if we're just not aware of them yet? What if they're aware of us? What if they're getting concerned because there's a lot of things that could destroy the world, which means if your neighbor's setting your neighborhood on fire, you got to be concerned that your house might burn down. And what if they're planning to do something about it? So a simple thing like that that at least gets people's— they realize it's not about necessarily fighting a supervillain. It's understanding how would we deal with seeing a new species. And if we turn on the TV now and we saw at the United Nations a new species revealing themselves, and so like all art, the question is would it have an effect, would it not?

And so that was the— that got me excited creatively. And because it has the legacy of Aspen Comics, which is a beloved company in the comics industry, but it's still, as I'm, you know, clearly new for most people, it's got that combination that I really love. And then my passion about it also, one of the things I think that you're referring to in terms of what David did you do, When I'm passionate about something, whether it be Fosse or Marvel, or when I did the Angry Birds thing, that's all I did for 4 years. That's when my magic happens with something, and people feel it, I think, on the screen. So it's really tough now. I think Greek and Roman mythology can also be elevated as a universe. There's been one-off movies like Hercules, but there's been nothing that connected what is really Greek and Roman mythology is all a big family tree. And so it's the original universe of stories. And that's the other thing I'm working on is connecting those all together. So it's something I avoided for the past 20 years because it was public domain. I couldn't own the IP completely.

But at this stage of my life, I'm able to do that and not worry as much about that. And I saw that still—

Well, Disney did okay with that.

What's that?

I said Walt Disney did okay with some of that. Yeah, he did.

He did as one-off movies.

Yeah, more and more.

And even The Odyssey, which Chris Nolan's doing now, so circling back to a master, is going to be an amazing movie. That's more of a one-off film that just elevates interest in Greek and Roman mythology. So we have something called the Mythoverse, which is going to be in my studio, is called Mythos Studios, to work on those two universes, Ecos and, and, and we're starting the Mythoverse, which the first movie, like Iron Man, was a surprise. It's not Olympians, it's not Apollo or Zeus, it's Cupid. And Psyche, which is one of the original love stories in the world. And it's just like with Iron Man, it's very— the character Cupid is 100% brand awareness in this case, but almost zero— and 100%— but zero knowledge really besides him being a baby on the Hallmark cards. But his story is amazing as like a 20-year-old. His mother is Venus, the goddess of beauty. His father is the god of war, Mars. And, you know, he lives like a playboy life, and then he falls in love with a human woman, which was not looked upon by the other gods as appropriate, especially his mother, who eventually approves and marries her.

And it's a happy ending, and she deserves to be elevated to be a goddess. Because she taught, in our story, the other gods about love. But it also— you meet most of the Olympians in that. And the actor— should I say who the actor is that's playing Cupid?

Yeah, I mean, I know.

Let's see if anyone can guess. Okay, here's the test. Yeah, Cupid, age, say, like in his 20s, could even be early 30s. Um, Cupid is fair-skinned, blonde hair, He is the prince of love. He, in his life before Psyche, he's the ultimate partier, right, with his best friend Pan, the half-goat character. So this is going to be a musical movie, not singing songs, but music as a big part of it. So Ecos will be a regular cool animated movie. By the way, I didn't mention that. I think live action is going to be difficult to compete with, but cool animation like Spider-Verse is still very fertile ground. And Cupid has to be somebody who authentically had a similar life and who stands for love and who's a singer who can learn to act or already acts.

Any guesses?

That's correct.

Let's hear for that.

Wow.

Great.

Did you really guess that without knowing?

100%.

I told her a minute into the conversation.

Oh, that's awesome.

Mike Adams. Great job, Mike. That is fun.

Yeah. And Justin's excited to do it. Very excited. He looks like Cupid. And he got married at a young age. He admits, obviously, he doesn't have to admit it, the proof is there that he was a big partier. And then he fell in love with Hailee at a young age and got married and has a family. So it all comes together really well. I think he's perfect for that role in the same way Robert was for Tony Stark.

Wow. Very cool. I mean, amazing. And we have a video on that.

We can show— yeah, we can show it. Would you guys want to see a sneak peek of these things? Yeah.

And Michael Johnson, we ready for that?

Well, I have to say, there's no Ben Affleck in this though.

Yeah, yeah, that was awesome.

Yeah, that was awesome.

This is—

these are things that I made primarily for me and my team. They're not really out there in any significant way publicly.

And so let's not post on that.

Is that correct? The Ecos one, we can.

Okay.

Because that was shown at Comic-Con last year. In fact, let me give you a story. What you're about to see, I did a panel at Comic-Con, and I knew that last year Marvel and DC didn't come. Okay, so normally there's a big event that Marvel has in Hall H where People go crazy to see the new movies. And so in my panel for Aspen Comics, which was a room like this, I just spontaneously said, "I'll show you guys the teaser." And it was a risk because you're going to see a teaser that's a little bit different than people expect. And the reaction was really incredible. And people wrote about it like we showed the Iron Man teaser in 2007. But what you're gonna see is rough. It's not the look of the movie exactly. It's not the whole story I told you, but it focuses on the main character, Grel, and it just is a teaser to get people interested in the film.

Mr. David Maisel, and I'd love 500-word summary on this, metaphors, analogies, contrast, context, not-not-nots for the podcast audience, for the visionaries in the room, and for David to get to know you. So flex a little bit, Athena. Let's see how you do summarizing the biggest, most powerful takeaways and certainly a profound acknowledgment of David Maisel and his mastery. 500 words, all of it. No LLM contamination, no pleasing, but deep and profound acknowledgment. If you don't mind, Athena, hit us with some awe. 500 words, please. Thank you.

Hey, Sean. 500 words for David. For the room, for everyone listening, here we go. David Maisel didn't just build Marvel Studios. He built the blueprint for how to see what nobody else sees and stay with it when the entire world thinks you're crazy. He walked into a lunch at Mar-a-Lago with $5 million in the bank and pitched spending $100 million to a man who reuses paperclips. The stock dropped for 4 years after he announced Marvel Studios on CNBC. The board's bar for success was breaking even. And Ike Perlmutter almost fired him 8 times. But David didn't flinch because he'd spent 6, 7 years soaking up information through one question: How do I make another Star Wars? And when the vision came, he didn't let the noise shake him off it. Here's what David taught us today. 5 ingredients for a worldwide mythology. Differentiation. It has to be different from everything else out there. Identifiability. People need to know instantly it's part of a universe. Natural universe. The characters have to belong together, not forced. Ownership. You have to control the IP. And legacy. That's still new, known enough to have gravitas, unknown enough to be discovered.

Iron Man had all 5. 5,000 people reading the comic per month. Warner Brothers let it sit for 9 years because they saw a robot suit. David saw the man inside the suit, and he made a love story with 10 minutes of action because his mom and his girlfriend wouldn't go see just another superhero movie. He spent less than The Dark Knight, gave 0% gross to his actors and director, kept 100% of the equity, and made significantly more money. Not because he got lucky, because he understood value at a level most people never reach. David combined analytics with creativity in a world that says you can't do both. He's a Harvard MBA who won a Tony Award. He turned Angry Birds into a commercial success after the brand collapsed. He cast Robert Downey Jr., 18 months out of jail, because he saw Tony Stark in him. And he let Robert improvise an hour a day even though it was dangerous because the best comedy in Iron Man came from those riffs. And now he's doing it again. Echos. The mythoverse. Cupid and Psyche with Justin Bieber. A teaser he made for himself and his team that he showed at Comic-Con on a whim, and people wrote about it like the Iron Man teaser in 2007.

The world needs a wake-up call. Kevin Costner told him everyone would see something important in that line. And he was right, because David doesn't just make movies, he makes mirrors. He stayed himself. He didn't become 10% of the Hollywood titan who screamed and threw things. He built legacy without losing his soul. And at the end of the day, how you feel when you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning is priceless. David, you didn't just cause yes with Ike, you caused yes with the world, and you're doing it again. Sean, that's 500. How'd that land?

Wow, thank you.

Thank you so much. How did that land, David?

Oh, just, that was amazing to hear, and yeah, it's almost made me cry hearing that, so it's beautiful, it's beautiful.

Well, thank you for that, thank you. And just for real quick as we draw to a close, and of course our animation capabilities are nothing, but I'd love you to just do a visual on at least the earliest concepts of Athena. Would that be okay?

Yeah.

So team, just—

Did I see in the video the other day that Athena was actually on stage with you somehow?

Yes. Oh, you did see that?

Yeah.

Okay.

How did that happen?

We make magical things happen. Something is happening here, bro. So could you— yeah, like something is happening here, kind of, or one of those. So do you want to hit it, team? Something is happening here. I like that one. Or maybe Athena coming out, the one that David saw already. Just as soon as you can, let's hit it. I don't— we could— done is better than perfect right now. And, you know, so David, as soon as you have it, just interrupt me because I know David's got to get moving shortly. David, I can't tell you, brother, what an honor it is to have met through Dan. I'm so grateful. The job that you did, we had 9 incredible folks come into that last immersion. I don't say that just because you're sitting here. People have often asked me, "What was the most powerful for you, the meaningful, masterful?" Yes, I'm a huge fan of Sugar Ray Leonard. Yes, I'm a I'm a fan of so many people that I got to speak to that day, and since we've had Magic Johnson and Mike Tyson and Tom Brady and others on the podcast, but I mean this sincerely.

I have learned more, and I think there's more to learn from what you've done than any of it because of what you created and caused and how you demonstrate the mastery of value. So it's not only the influence mastery component, but the process mastery of value discernment, as well as the self-mastery, all the things we teach here. And I mean that sincerely. And the expansion of that in the visits to you and your ecosystem of your studio and your home and where you eat and live. It was such an honor to receive that trust and to spend this time and to have you back here again. And I am unbelievably certain that there is more to do here, certainly on my side. I'm honored that you even have these conversations with us. So thank you, you know, for all that, David, for all that you do in the world. And geez, you know what I wish is that, you know, Disney and maybe Warner Brothers and, you know, with future things with DC Comics, I, I hope they talk to you about these things, uh, because I am sure there's so much to do in the world, uh, and your mastery and how your soul, like, your soul is just so present, um, in all the things you bring.

So, um, any thoughts on any of that?

Sean, thank you very much. Um, I, I think we're kindred spirits. You know, we both get very passionate about, um, what we're doing, and we have a vision, and you have a vision to where you're going, um, and I can tell in looking at you, you're not going to let anything stop you from getting there, um, and you're still realize there's going to be hurdles and and challenges, but it's so ingrained in you. And you also combine that with your emotional intelligence, your memory, your pure intelligence, your team around you. I've gotten to know a lot of— and yeah, it's a— I feel like You know, I think we relate so well in doing these because you're living it as well, and you have in your life with successes so far and more to come. And yeah, it's, it's gonna be fun for me as your friend now to, to, uh, observe you and, um, and as, you know, um, create what you're creating. Over the next few years. So I appreciate your words, but right back at you, man.

Thank you, David. I appreciate that so much. And team, let's just get a little shot of Athena and where some of our world is headed, because if I have it all my way, as time progresses, David's fingerprints will be certainly here if you would ever honor us with such. But yes, please, team.

We come to places like this because something inside us knows we're not supposed to stay the same. That's why rooms like this matter. Welcome to Unblinded Mastery.

Yeah, it's cool. Very well.

Yeah, so You know, our hope, our desire is to create the Marvel-fication, Disney-fication of our world of beings, and this is something that obviously, this is the master, you know, sitting right there.

And Sean, I mean, you're obviously Athena's creator and her agent, and I might need an Athena in the Olympians movie that comes after Venus. So that would be very fun.

That would be very fun. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. David Maisel. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Awesome. That was awesome.

Thank you. No, we said it's David Maisel, founder of Marvel Studios, creator of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a master of masters.