The Marvel Cinematic Universe we know and love could have been very different, as Disney CEO Bob Iger recently said he stopped Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige from being fired back in 2015.
Iger was speaking to CNBC’s David Faber and was asked about Marvel chairman and former CEO Ike Perlmutter’s support of Wendy’s Company chairman Nelson Peltz getting a board seat at Disney. Peltz announced February 9 that he would no longer be vying for a seat on the board. Even still, the whole process appears to have been a frustrating one on both sides.
When asked if he was surprised Perlmutter was so keen on having Peltz join the board and if that caused a “feud” between Iger and Perlmutter, Iger snuck in an interesting tidbit for MCU fans.
“Well, I think that’s a curious dynamic that I think you know, our filings indicate that both Ike and Nelson were working together to try to encourage the board or convince the board to put Nelson on the board,” Iger said. “They have a relationship that dates back quite some time. We bought Marvel in 2009. I promised Ike the job that he would continue to run Marvel after that. Not forever, necessarily. But after that.
“And in 2015, he was intent on firing Kevin Feige, who was running Marvel Studios… and I thought that was a mistake and stepped in to prevent that from happening. I think Kevin is an incredibly, incredibly talented executive that you know, the Marvel track record speaks for itself. And so I moved the moviemaking operation of Marvel out from under Ike into the movie studio under Alan Horn.”
Faber then questioned if that “created some ill will” between Iger and Perlmutter.
“Well, you’d have to ask Ike about that,” Iger said. “But let’s put it this way. He was not happy about it. And I think that unhappiness exists today. And you know, what the link is between that and Nelson, is his relationship. I think that’s something that you can speculate about. I won’t.”
Iger’s comments follow yesterday’s Q1 earnings call for Disney, where it was revealed that Disney will be laying off 7,000 people in an effort to cut $5.5 billion in costs. It was also revealed that Disney+ saw its first quarterly subscriber loss between October 2022 and December 2022.
In happier news, Disney announced that Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia sequels were all in the works, that an Avatar experience is headed to Disneyland, and that Disney Illusion Island will be released on Switch July 28, 2023.
Blogroll Image Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
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