Isaac Perlmutter, Marvel Entertainment’s CEO who retired for three decades, was ousted, as was the Walt Disney Company confirmed to the New York Times.
The layoff comes as Disney is generally cutting staff and cutting costs to cope with the macroeconomic moment — but for many it’s long overdue, after years of Perlmutter’s corporate cutthroat attempts and conspicuous political activism.
Most recently, Perlmutter unsuccessfully campaigned against Disney executives and board members to place his personal friend and acquaintance activist investor Nelson fur in the Disney board. But this kind of aggressive deal brokerage has defined Perlmutter’s commitment to Marvel since the beginning.
Perlmutter entered the Marvel cosmos in the early 1990s when his recently acquired Toy Biz company licensed Marvel characters. This enabled Toy Biz to partially take over Marvel Entertainment, and when the latter’s bankruptcy turned into an ownership battle in the late 1990s, Perlmutter and fellow Toy Biz colleague Avi Arad emerged victorious, merging Toy Biz and Marvel Entertainment to Marvel Enterprises.
Perlmutter rose to CEO of Marvel Entertainment in 2005, a title he retained even after he sold the company to Disney in 2009, just as Marvel Entertainment’s film production subsidiary, Marvel Studios, was expanding its in-house franchise. Perlmutter has reportedly managed Marvel Studios down to the last detail, demanding both cost-cutting and loyalty, leading to clashes with MCU boss Kevin Feige.
In 2015, Disney executive Bob Iger even got wind that Perlmutter was trying to get Feige fired, and quickly organized Marvel Studios under Walt Disney Studios, leaving Perlmutter no longer in control of the department. Perlmutter was further removed from any creative power over Marvel interests in 2019 when an organizational reorganization of Marvel Television (home of all of Marvel’s non-Disney Plus TV series, such as daredevil And Agents of SHIELD) under the Marvel Studios umbrella and hired Marvel Entertainment President Dan Buckley to report solely to Kevin Feige on “creative and editorial publishing” matters.
As of today, Buckley remains President of Marvel Entertainment, reporting exclusively to Kevin Feige.
“Mr. Perlmutter’s zeal for entrepreneurial frugality for the sake of profit is well known in the entertainment industry,” notes the New York Times. “In one particularly graphic example, he plucked paper clips from trash cans at Marvel offices for reuse. The people at Marvel are always talking remembers the time he suggested serving potato chips at a movie premiere to save on catering costs.To closely monitor activity in the Marvel offices, Mr. Perlmutter once installed at least 20 cameras.Disney ripped them out a few years ago. “
Perlmutter’s political leanings are also known and colored to the point of dirtiness. Between Perlmutter and his wife Laura, they have donated the best part of a million dollars to funds related to former President Donald Trump’s election, and Perlmutter is a fixture at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. 2018, ProPublica reported results this Perlmutter, his personal physician Bruce Moskowitz, and Moskowitz’s squash partner — none of whom had ever served in the US government or military — Mr. Trump had unofficially given free rein heads the Department of Veterans Affairs.
As a reclusive CEO, Perlmutter is also notorious among some Marvel Comics fans, and is often cited as a decades-long backstop against diversification in the Marvel superhero ranks, particularly in the area of LGBTQ+ representation, even for characters creators and fans alike have been recognized as queer for decades.
