Disney Company lays off infamous Marvel exec Ike Perlmutter
Isaac Perlmutter, reclusive CEO of Marvel Entertainment of three decades, has been ousted, the Walt Disney Company has confirmed to the New York Times.
The firing comes as Disney is generally downsizing and cost-cutting to meet the macroeconomic moment — but for many, it’s long overdue, after years of Perlmutter’s attempts at cut-throat corporate dealing and conspicuous political activism.
Most recently, Perlmutter unsuccessfully advocated to Disney execs and board members to place his personal friend and known activist investor Nelson Peltz on the Disney board. But this kind of aggressive deal brokering has defined Perlmutter’s involvement with Marvel since it began.
Perlmutter entered the Marvel cosmos in the early 1990s, when his recently acquired company Toy Biz obtained the licenses to Marvel characters. This put Toy Biz in a position to partially acquire Marvel Entertainment, and when the latter’s late 1990s bankruptcy turned into a battle for ownership, Perlmutter and fellow Toy Biz exec Avi Arad emerged victorious, merging Toy Biz and Marvel Entertainment into Marvel Enterprises.
Perlmutter rose to CEO of Marvel Entertainment in 2005, a title he retained even as he sold the company to Disney in 2009, just as Marvel Entertainment’s film production subsidiary, Marvel Studios, was ramping up its in-house franchise. Perlmutter reportedly micromanaged the heck out of Marvel Studios, demanding both cost cutting and fealty, leading to clashes with MCU head honcho Kevin Feige.
In 2015, Disney exec Bob Iger even caught wind that Perlmutter was attempting to have Feige fired, and he swiftly reorganized Marvel Studios under Walt Disney Studios so that Perlmutter would no longer have control over the division.
Read more on polygon.com
