Bob Iger said He Needed to Clear "Roadblocks" to Get Black Panther and Captain Marvel Made

Marvel CEO said he needed to clear roadblocks before he could green light Black Panther and Captain Marvel.

Marvel was only taking baby steps at the beginning, and when audiences responded to the 'Iron Man' movie, the studio was sure of the direction they wanted to take the franchise. But just because they knew what they wanted to do doesn’t mean the people at the top knew how to get there.

When a huge franchise is based on a major studio, there are people at the top who want their input in the movie, but not everyone in the room should get a say and sometimes someone needs to step up to tell what is right and wrong. There were just way too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to the early days of Marvel and how to handle and move forward with the characters in their possession.

Source: Financial Times

Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney who makes more than $60 million per year, said he would be leaving the company when his contract with the Mouse House expires. He revealed in his book he needed to clear roadblocks to getting the 'Black Panther' and 'Captain Marvel' made. Two of the most successful origin movies in history were said to be box office bombs, and there were people in the company who couldn’t imagine seeing a woman and a black person lead their solo superhero movies.

“I’ve been in the business long enough to have heard every old argument in the book,” Bob shared. “And I’ve learned that old arguments are just that: old, and out of step with where the world is and where it should be. We had a chance to make a great movie and to showcase an underrepresented segment of America, and those goals were not mutually exclusive. I called Ike and told him to tell his team to stop putting up roadblocks and ordered that we put both Black Panther and Captain Marvel into production.”

Source: Yahoo

This is not something new to the Marvel movies before it was still attached with Disney. Ike Perlmutter once infamously wanted Iron Man to be omitted from the scripts of Captain America: Civil War. Ike was so intrusive in the movie-making process; the whole thing became too much of a trouble for the head honcho of Marvel Kevin Feige who was on the verge of quitting the whole thing.

Instead of allowing one of the highest-grossing producers to walk out the door, Iger decided to separate the movie wing of Marvel with Ike controlling the TV wing from the New York office and everything relating to Marvel movies controlled by Kevin with only Bob being the one person he needed to report to.

It was a great decision by the CEO of Disney considering the TV wing was hit and miss with their projects and MCU grossed more than $26 billion from 23 movies with 'Avengers: Endgame' becoming the highest-grossing movie of all-time.

Source: IMDb

It is still amazing to think there were people inside Disney who thought the $1.3 billion and $1.1 billion grossing 'Black Panther' and 'Captain Marvel' were supposedly not going to make any money. Though Bob saved the two franchises, he is still not in the right all the time.

There was the infamous outburst by Abigail Disney who called out the CEO for taking home $65 million in a year while most of the employees in the company were facing difficulty making ends meet. We live in a capitalist society, and it is understandable someone getting paid what is considered to be their fair due, Bob made a lot of money for Disney but if the incomes come while breaking the backs of the people at the bottom rung of the ladder then it is not ethical to be paid the kind of money he was given.

Source: Vox

Well, the man is leaving the company soon and what it will mean for the future of the Marvel movie wing is still to be seen. But we are thankful Black Panther, and Captain Marvel was green-lit, and Bob was the one who caused the movies to be made.

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