All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S04E01.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

If you had
a slogan for Marvel, it'd be,

"Risk everything
to achieve anything."

This is the story
of how cinema's richest universe...

These were characters that
could become iconic characters.

...from one of the
biggest publishers in comics...

DC were The Beatles.
Marvel were The Rolling Stones.

...started
not with a bang...

...but with a whimper.

It was cheap, jack budgets,

- horrible sets.
- You're asking me to make

a $33 million picture for $1 million.

There's nothing more to say.

The whole film was pulled back
and never released.

Stop them!

It's clobbering time!

How attempts to adapt
their characters

to the screen...

We couldn't
sell Marvel shows.

People were afraid
of losing their career.

...brought them
to the brink of destruction...

Marvel went into bankruptcy.

...before a massive gamble...

The next logical step
was Marvel starting

- to make their own movies.
- My turn.

...took them
from sitting ducks...

No more Mr. Nice Duck.

That's gonna work?
Are you sure?

...to soaring gods.

Wow! This is like
serious, big league stuff.

It's the coolest thing
I've ever seen.

They were a dying
comic book publisher...

Marvel was in dire straits.

...under the thumb of
an intimidating toy tycoon...

Avi Arad have a gun
that he might pull at any time.

...led by
a fresh-faced executive.

Feige was the guy
getting everyone coffee.

How on Earth-616

did they fight the odds...

We were gonna make
The Avengers before Thor

and Captain America
had even come out.

"Oh, my God.
How are we gonna do this?"

...to become
Hollywood's hottest studio...

Ed Norton is not
more important than us.

If you're an Avenger short,
how do you recover from it?

...and create
a cinematic universe...

Who's gonna go see
The Guardians of the Galaxy?

There's a tree
and there's a raccoon...

eh, no.

Has it gone too far?

You don't have to do this.
Please. This is insane.

...like no one had ever seen?

They know how to spend
money. I don't think

I've ever seen
more luxurious craft services.

But the pressure was on...

There's a very ceremonial
shredding of your script

in front
of a couple of lawyers.

...knowing that if they fell...

Nobody knew it was gonna work.

...the whole universe
would fall with them.

These bastards
are gonna get me killed off.

No!

On Icons Unearthed: Marvel.

It really is the most
complicated story

in our history.

Since the dawn of time,

humankind has relied
on mythology,

legends,
heroes to inspire us.

They'd been painted on stone,
chiseled into walls,

but as the millennia passed,

these ancient texts
became less Sanskrit

and more... Comic Sans.

And that's where the true power
of mythology lives today.

Marvel characters...

are modern mythology.

They are something that,
at its core,

we can relate to.

What kid growing up
didn't feel like a mutant?

Comics were...
just a great escape.

People called me names.
I was a skinny kid.

And I remember just fantasizing.
I would be in these characters.

I love the idea that
they were just ordinary people

that were handed
these extraordinary powers,

but deep down in their heart
and their soul,

they were still real people.

But the company whose name,

perhaps more than any other,
stands for superheroes

had its beginnings
in the true American tradition

of, well,
bold-faced capitalism.

Marvel Comics started
with a man by the name

of Martin Goodman.

Martin Goodman worked
in pulp publishing.

That's right.
Pulpy, high-selling fiction.

Or, in other words...

Anything that would sell,

Martin Goodman would just
put out there.

Another good seller
he put out there?

Science fiction.

He published a magazine

called Marvel Science Stories.

But what was
a really good seller?

You know, there was the
success of Superman and Batman.

And Martin Goodman
didn't own either.

And so he concluded...

We should come up
with our own versions.

Began with The Human Torch
and this provocative title,

- Marvel Comics.
- And perhaps,

due to its pulpy heritage...

The characters were different
from the clean-cut

DC characters

in that they had problems.

And Martin had solutions

and wondered,
"What if superhero characters

got together?"

Something that
DC hadn't thought of.

It was
a matter of months before

the first Marvel crossover.

And this
understandably tense encounter

between the water-based
Namor the Sub-Mariner

and the flame-based
Human Torch foreshadowed,

well, why we're here.

This would be kind of
a major part of the Marvel story,

this interconnected universe.

A concept ahead of its time.

This was in 1939.

A time when heroes
were needed more than ever.

And one would come
in the form of... Steve.

Or otherwise known,
Captain America.

Created by
Martin Goodman's employees

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

Good ole Cap shielded America
from withering war-time morale.

Captain America
is there to reflect

the best of us.

That's a connection
to the heart of the country

- is what makes Cap great.
- But it was

the amount of comics
Captain America sold

that was truly great and soon
Marvel was challenging DC

in comic sales.
However, within Marvel,

an internal war was brewing.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

were moonlighting for DC.

Because Martin Goodman refused

to pay Kirby and Simon
the royalties they were promised.

An outraged Martin
fired his only two writers.

"For the time being,
they're going to try to

struggle along
without yours truly."

With Simon and Kirby gone,

Martin Goodman found himself
in desperate need

of fresh talent.

Enter 19-year-old
Stanley Lieber

or otherwise known as
Stan Lee.

So Stan Lee was related
to Martin Goodman

and he came on as
sort of an office boy, helper.

No longer just a sidekick,

office boy
got a big promotion.

Stan was installed
as Interim Editor

even though he had
very little interest in comics.

He wanted to become
a real writer

and even adopted a pen name
at Marvel

to hide his involvement.

Stan's name was Stanley Lieber,
last name Lieber,

and then he changed it down
to Stan Lee.

But even still...

- He stuck around.
- But instead

of overseeing a thriving,
morale-boosting comic company?

After the war,
it sort of lost its way and...

they, again,
just sort of tried anything.

- Including...
- Teen comedy.

Romance comics.

Crime comics.

War comics.

As the years

went by,
people turned off comics

and turned on
the newfangled television.

It was a really rough time
at Marvel.

I mean, there was
plenty of layoffs.

Stan stayed,
but that could've been the end

of the entire story.

Stan Lee was done.
He was finished.

He had told as many bad stories,
as he called 'em.

His wife, Joan,
said to him,

"If you're gonna leave,
at least leave with one story

that you're proud of.
What you would want to do."

But what?
It had been 20 years

since Jack Kirby
had struck gold

with Captain America.

Stan needed something... fantastic.

And if not that,
then some help.

It was around that time
in 1959, 20 years after

Jack Kirby was shown the door,
he came back to Marvel.

And from the sounds of it,

just in time, too.

Jack Kirby said Stan Lee
was crying in an office.

He was afraid
he was losing his job.

But very soon
Stan would be wiping away

- those tears.
- So the story goes

that Martin Goodman
was playing golf

with one
of the executives at DC

and they were having luck
with their team book

called The Justice League.

Which was all of the DC heroes
running around.

Essentially,
a muscled-up version

of the crossover concept

that Martin
had pioneered decades ago.

What Stan Lee decided
he wanted to do

was take a different angle
on the team book.

It was a simple idea
that would have

truly fantastic potential.

Stan thought, "Wouldn't it be
interesting if they acted

more like a family?
And if they didn't get along?

And if they
didn't just focus on,

'Well, there's a giant starfish

that's going
to ruin Metropolis.'"

It was a concept
that inspired what would become

Marvel's first family
of superheroes.

Thus, in 1961,
The Fantastic Four was born.

- And it clicked.
- The Fantastic Four

was an instant success.
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

had a blueprint and developed
a workflow so efficient...

The Marvel Method,
where Stan would do an outline

of the story and then Jack
would break the pages down

and write dialogue suggestions

and then Stan would come back in
and dialogue them.

Jack Kirby, him and Stan,
they were sort of the dynamic duo.

Jack and Stan's
Marvel Method

soon expanded
beyond The Fantastic Four

leading to an incredible,
marvelous array

of characters we still know
and love today.

Hulk, Dr. Strange,
Iron Man,

Thor, The X-Men,
Black Panther,

all the movie ones.
Just on and on and on and on.

It's character development.

It's not about super powers
or costumes.

Marvel Comics were
intended to be a soap opera

where a fight broke out.

Marvel was always
very street-level and real.

Stan Lee described it as being

"One DNA strand
away from reality."

But the biggest
character to come out of

this frenzy
of The Marvel Method was

your friendly neighborhood
Spider-Man,

perhaps Stan's most
relatable superhero of all.

The idea of a teenage superhero
who is not a sidekick

who had real problems.
He lived with his aunt

and he couldn't pay the bills
and he wanted to meet girls.

Spider-Man helped
Marvel finally catch DC

in comic book sales
by 1972,

yet competition
for the top spot remained tight

and DC meant business.

DC was always very corporate.

DC's offices were like
the Mad Men offices.

And it was like walking
into an accountancy firm.

DC were The Beatles.

Marvel were
The Rolling Stones.

The Marvel bullpen
was like the Wild West.

- It was a college frat house.
- There's Jim Asley

on roller skates with
an 18-inch afro

with a boom box rolling down
the hallways

with a marker, you know,
like, drawing on the walls.

But was the writing
on the wall for Marvel?

Because in the next great
battle between

the two comic titans,
DC were up, up and away

and Marvel
was only on the ground floor.

In 1968, Marvel Comics
founder Martin Goodman

wound down and cashed up.

Marvel was sold

to the Perfect Film
& Chemical Corporation.

That's not hyperbole.
It was literally called

The Perfect Film
& Chemical Corporation.

A conglomerate
out of New Jersey.

Perfect Films?
This must've sounded

perfect to Stan,
minus the chemical bit.

As early as 1969, Stan Lee
was starting to talk about

chasing Hollywood success.

But Stan's
new bosses were barely

even interested in the
comic books they just bought,

let alone
Perfect comic book films.

It was more of, like,
an industrial conglomerate

that didn't pay too much
attention to the comic books.

One of its trademark items
was, like, children's vitamins.

The Marvel ownership was not
really interested

in putting in the money
to go chasing after Hollywood.

Striving less
for big-screen perfection

and instead focusing on
small-screen mediocrity.

You know, we just saw
this slew of made-for-TV stuff.

You know, Captain America
on a shoe-string budget

in some Romanian countryside.

Huh. Come in, Dr. Strange.

And unfortunately,
things only got stranger.

Dr. Strange had a movie
that came out in the '70s.

It was a made-for-TV film.

Stephen Strange...

you are the one who is chosen.

Dr. Strange,
there's this mysticism

against a witch.

It's not very faithful.

I felt tremendous pain.

The tremendous pain
was all Marvel's.

Even their children's TV shows,
such as Hanna-Barbera's

The Thing, struggled
to make an impression.

We couldn't get Spider-Man,
so we did a series

based on The Thing,
but it wasn't very successful.

Boy, I can't believe
my own baby blues.

But finally in 1977,

Marvel would be
on the big screen.

Hey, look,
it's that Spider-Man.

Well, in Scotland anyway.

The TV show was actually shown
as a big movie in Scotland.

Like a big summer event movie.

I thought Steven Spielberg
directed it.

He definitely didn't.

In fact, the short-lived
Amazing Spider-Man series

was firmly stuck on TVs
everywhere else.

It's ironic that television
back then was considered

small potatoes and that's where
Marvel got its start

and they were working
towards getting to films

because most of the money
was in movies.

Exactly.
Because in 1978,

DC's most popular superhero
was the first

to fly off the page
and onto the big screen.

It's Superman.

1978 Superman

was a milestone

in superhero filmmaking.

Here was a superhero movie
for adults.

Set her down.
Set her down.

You look at it and you go,
"This is how you take a comic

- and make it into a movie."
- It's not that easy.

To make movies, you really
need to be in Hollywood

and Marvel wasn't
and so finally after having

worked in New York for 42 years
with Marvel,

Stan Lee moved to Tinseltown.

And with the backing
of Marvel ownership,

started assembling a crack team
of Hollywood experts.

I was offered
the job of President and CEO

of Marvel Productions,
which was the film division

of Marvel Comics.

I quite frankly was astonished

that they called me
and offered me the job

because I was at Hanna-Barbera
and had done The Thing--

which I don't think
they'll ever forgive us for.

Stan had only
one rule for Margaret

and it was
all she needed to know.

He said, "Maggie..."
He always called me Maggie.

"I'll work for you
any day of the week

as long as you follow
my one rule:

Don't you ever ask to eat
any of my dessert."

Ah, well,
apart from that challenge,

Margaret had one
very simple mission.

The expectations,
"Get Marvel Comics out there."

And one
very complicated problem.

The networks
were not interested.

Because even though...

They had just dozens and dozens
and dozens of characters

- to exploit.
- There was a sentiment

that Marvel Comics
would not make good TV shows.

But here's the thing...

uh... not that Thing.

Margaret's expertise
was in animation

and with her help,
Marvel Productions carved out

a niche bringing toys to life

creating classic,
animated cartoons.

Marvel Productions
had just gotten the rights

with Hasbro to produce
Transformers and G.I. Joe

and then we did Jem and we did
other series after that.

We eventually became on fire

because Transformers
was so successful.

G.I. Joe was so successful.

But as for
their big screen ambitions?

None of Marvel's characters...

Hulk, Dr. Strange,
Iron Man, Thor, The X-Men.

...were even coming close.

It got to a point
where Marvel was so desperate

to see their characters
up on the big screen,

they started selling the rights
to not just their little

side characters
from romance comics.

Like, they sold rights to Spider-Man...

Fantastic Four,
and Captain America as well.

In fact, the filming
rights to The Fantastic Four

traded for just $250,000

to a German producer,
Bernd Eichinger.

So we'll see
what happens there.

The frustration
from our perspective was,

they weren't really
making the movies

and yet we were blocked
from doing anything

- because they had the rights.
- Marvel's situation

was far from perfect
and soon they'd be far

from the Perfect Film
& Chemical Company

because Marvel
was once again sold.

This time
to New World Pictures,

which had been established
and owned by this gentleman,

the filmmaking icon
Roger Corman.

However, he'd sold New World
to some entertainment lawyers

who, if nothing else,
probably knew how to read fine print.

New World Pictures
was really excited that

they'd bought the rights
to Superman.

And someone had to say,

"Oh, no,
actually Spider-Man is Marvel."

But it was
the direction they wanted

to take Marvel in that
would cause the most damage.

So New World had this concept
that they would only do

work that we owned
or controlled.

And thanks to
its fire sale years earlier...

They sold rights to Spider-Man,

Fantastic Four,
and Captain America.

That left Marvel
with few options.

We started
really struggling as a company.

We downsized, meaning we had
to cut a lot of talent loose,

which was very... discouraging.

But there was
one Marvel property

Margaret could still devote
to putting on the map

and X marked the spot.

We had been trying
to sell X-Men for years.

I had been so determined
to sell it.

I was like a dog with a bone.
I said, "Look...

maybe if we do a pilot,
people will understand X-Men."

For a cash-strapped Marvel,

even a cheap pilot
was going to be a stretch.

We couldn't afford the budget
it would probably really take

- to do a great job.
- The answer

was to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Or, in this case, rob Robocop
to pay for The X-Men.

We had ordered 13 half-hours
of Robocop,

but we decided to do
one less episode

of Robocop
and make a pilot for X-Men.

Margaret knew
X-Men would be a hit.

Kinda my final
last-ditch effort

to try to sell X-Men
and it didn't work.

Quite frankly, after that,
Stan and I gave up.

Now I can
never make it up to him.

Margaret and Stan
were in desperate need

of some luck.
Um, and if not luck,

- then...
- I know... Howard the Duck.

What could possibly go wrong?

In 1986,
Stan and Margaret's dream

of seeing a Marvel character
on the silver screen

became a reality.

At last, Marvel
was in the game to compete

with DC at the box office,

but it wasn't one
that anyone expected.

Howard the Duck.
The horny, alien duck.

Of course.
The ill-tempered, alien duck

- trapped on Earth.
- Of all of Marvel's characters.

It was a character
Marvel still

retained the rights to.

Howard the Duck
had one super fan

named George Lucas

and everyone was a fan of him,

especially Universal Pictures

and their very large checkbook.

A collector told me
that George Lucas owns

an original page of
Howard the Duck comic book art.

He was from another place.
Another time. Another planet.

And he had his own take
on things

and I think that's what
made it appealing.

- It made it funny.
- But for a movie

version of Howard the Duck
to be funny...

I knew there was gonna
have to be, you know, puppets

and--and, you know,
little people.

I was very dubious
about that whole...

little person
in a duck outfit...

...and proposed
that it could be done

cinematically with cables
and stuff like that.

You know, that idea
was shitcanned.

The schedule would never permit
anything like that.

George went to Phil Tippett
and he said,

"Phil, what are we
gonna do about this?"

Phil said, "Well, you need
somebody like that guy

Tim... Tim...
What's it? Tim Rose.

Well, where's Tim Rose?"
"Well, he's in England."

"Well get him over here!"

Having impressed
as Admiral Ackbar

in Return of the Jedi...

We've got to give
those fighters more time!

...Tim applied
his puppetry skills

to the movie's star,
but when it came to the voice

of Howard the Duck...

The voice
of Howard was going to be done

- by Robin Williams.
- ...Tim would do

the guide voice on set
and then Robin Williams

would add
his vocal talents later.

However,
on a visit to the set,

Robin Williams had a little fun
and did it live.

When Robin started doing
the voice for the duck,

it was very much like the voice
that I was doing for the duck.

Willard Huyck, the director,
screams out,

"Rose, you fucking asshole!
How many times have I told you

not to say that out on set
while I'm out here directing?!"

The first AD runs over to him
said, "That wasn't Tim Rose.

That was Robin Williams."
Williams turns to me

and he says, "Is that the way
things are around here?"

And I said, "Well,
to be honest with you,

he's in
a pretty good mood today."

And he said,
"Thank you very much.

This was very educational."
And never did the movie.

Come the first screening,

it was obvious Robin Williams
had dodged a bullet.

Marvel was looking
not at a duck,

- but at a turkey.
- It bombed.

Earning just
$38 million at the box office.

By the time you see
the lady duck

with the bare breasts,
you realize that you've entered

a new dimension
of cinematic experience.

It was painful for the studio

- and it was painful for Marvel.
- And to make things

especially painful,
not long after,

DC released
a very different movie

about a winged character.

I'm Batman.

In 1989, DC's Batman

took in
$400 million worldwide.

Life's been good to me.

I think a lot of the reason
that Batman worked

was because Batman
is a comic book character

that everybody knows.
Also because of the 1960s

TV show...

- Hold it, Riddler!
- ...it had another generation

of awareness
beyond comic book readers.

It was a bitter pill

for Stan and Margaret
to swallow

and Batman's success
did little to entice interest

in Marvel's other titles.

Stan--
he became so discouraged.

The man behind the duck

learned that first-hand
at a comic convention.

One of the fans
came up to me and said,

"Oh, have you talked to Stan yet?

You were his
first Marvel character

to ever be made into a movie."
I went, "Oh, yeah,

I never really
thought about it like that."

And it turned out
it was just me and Stan Lee

standing in this elevator.

So I say, "Oh, hi, Stan.
I did Howard the Duck."

And he just glowered at me
and didn't say a word

the whole way up
in the elevator and then left.

Stan Lee
was back to square one,

needing to find a way to
get his most popular characters

into the right movie
and following the failure

of Howard the Duck,
he had no reason to believe

he'd ever see that happen.

I hope you're getting all this.

After being at Marvel
for 47 years,

through sale after sale
of the company,

maybe what Stan Lee needed
was stability.

Unfortunately, that's exactly
what he didn't get

when in 1989

a new player
entered the Marvel story.

Someone who was not
a comic book fan.

Ron Perelman
was one of the richest

men in the world,
a businessman on the hunt

for undervalued companies.

Known for Revlon products.

And he could tell
there was money to be made

- with Marvel's assets.
- I guess you'd call

Ron Perelman
a corporate raider.

He bought companies
and stripped their assets

and then sold the husks.

In January of 1989,
Ron Perelman bought Marvel

from New World Entertainment
for $82.5 million.

A highly consequential deal
that would either make

or break Marvel.
In fact, Perelman might

just find a way to do both.

Ron Perelman
had bought Marvel

at a good time.
Comic book sales were steady

and interest
in fantasy figures

was on the upswing
in Hollywood.

Unfortunately...

The rights
were a little muddy.

Even when the
mega-wealthy Ron Perelman

came in and took over Marvel,
the rights were still sold

very cheaply back then
and the deals were still in place,

but this time...
the movies got made.

Like this 1991
made-for-TV movie

of Captain America
produced by Cannon Films,

which featured a practically
asthmatic Captain.

Carolco's adaptation
of The Punisher

wasn't much better,
being, well...

punishing to watch.

But there was hope
on the horizon

as one of Hollywood's
most accomplished film makers

was rumored to be interested
in tackling one of Marvel's

most important characters.

There was a lot of talk
about James Cameron

creating a Spider-Man movie.

Everybody was really like,
you know,

"Oh, I wanna see that."
And it never happened.

Hollywood is the only town
in the world

- where hope can kill you.
- Although Marvel

was languishing
in Hollywood purgatory,

it wasn't quite dead yet
as their own Margaret Loesch

received an offer
that could potentially

turn the tide
for the beleaguered company.

I got offered this job
to start a network.

But not just any network.

An all-new Fox kids network.

But Margaret was loyal
to Marvel and Stan.

Surely she wouldn't
consider le--

Wait a minute.
I'm gonna be a buyer.

I can buy Marvel shows.

And she
would be buying them

for Fox's Saturday Morning
Kids' block.

Tired of boring TV?

- Well, then take control.
- Which had

the potential of being
the perfect home

for a Marvel cartoon.
The only catch

was Margaret was going
to have to leave the company

she held so dear.

And I went
to my bosses at Marvel

and said, "I've got
this great opportunity.

I'd like to take the job."
Well, much to my...

shock... Ron Perelman wouldn't
let me out of my contract.

Caught in
Ron Perelman's nefarious grip,

Margaret hatched a plan
to start working at Fox

while she rode out
her contract at Marvel.

Behind the scenes,
we had an office

and at night after I'd left Marvel,
I'd go over there

and we'd talk about programming.

After months of secret work,

Margaret's contract
with Marvel expired

and despite Stan's
very clear instruction...

"Don't you ever
ask to eat any of my dessert."

It appeared Margaret
could have her cake

and eat Stan's, too.

And I'm gonna order X-Men first
and then I'm gonna order

Spider-Man and then
I wanna do Silver Surfer.

Margaret's Spidey-sense

about X-Men was spot on.

The show became
a ratings winner.

Ironically, it was
Margaret leaving the company

that saved Marvel
and handed them

their biggest success yet.

The sadness of Wolverine

and the unrequited love
of Gambit and Rogue,

all so very relatable to kids.

They took the comic stories

and adapted them.

They updated them.

They made them
more contemporary.

Things looked to be
on the up-and-up.

While Margaret was getting
Marvel characters on screen,

Ron Perelman, through raising the
price of Marvel's comic books,

was starting to get their
financial books back in order,

taking the company public,

making himself $150 million
in the process

while tripling
Marvel's value.

With his empire-building
appetite whet,

Ron invested
in a toy company.

Toy Biz, which had
a great deal of success

selling toys
with the Marvel characters.

They made this amazing deal.

Perelman got 46% of Toy Biz
and Toy Biz got

a perpetual exclusive license
to make Marvel action figures.

It was a deal
that triggered

a chain of events
which years later would

come to spell disaster
for Perelman's involvement

with Marvel, but right now
it spelled disaster

for Marvel's aspirations
to get its properties

- on screen.
- One of the things that this

did was make studios
even less interested

in doing Marvel movies because
if you couldn't get the rights

to the action figures,
you were missing out

on a big stream of revenue

and this license ended up
being a little bit

- of a--a poison pill.
- Also hard to swallow

was when the movie rights
to a little-known comic

called Blade were sold
for $25,000.

Not that Ron's Toy Biz
partners cared about that.

Well, initially at least,

they had a different priority.

How to take
Marvel's intellectual property

and turn it into toys
and make money.

But just who
were these Toy Biz executives?

Toy Biz was run by

two guys who are named
Avi Arad and Ike Perlmutter.

Avi was the idea guy

and Ike was the money guy.

And like
all successful money men,

Ike lived in the shadows.

You know, there's like
three photographs of him

that exist in the world.

Like, he does not want people
to know what he looks like

- or who he is.
- But as for

Ike Perlmutter's
chief toy maker,

well, Santa Claus he wasn't.

The people who worked
for Avi Arad at Marvel

were terrified of him.
There were all these rumors

that he was an ex-Mossad agent.
That he had, like,

an ankle holster for,
you know, a gun that he might

- pull at any time.
- What Avi would pull

regularly was rank.

He got directly involved
with the Fox Kids cartoons.

Avi and I did have some...

butting of heads a little bit.
Avi was a fan of Marvel,

but he was first and foremost
a toy man.

Very smart guy, very driven
to support the toys.

And therefore
Avi's main concern

was that the cartoon characters
would look good as toys.

When we
were developing Spider-Man,

he presented us with
the new look of Spider-Man

for the show.
All the drawings

were very bulked-up
and my reaction,

"Avi, you know...

Spider-Man is a teenage guy."

He said, "Yeah, and he gets
these powers and he becomes this."

I said, "But he doesn't
really become that."

And so Margaret
flexed her muscles

and they reached a compromise.

And we ended up
with a Spider-Man that was

- bulkier than normal.
- But in any case...

- Spider-Man!
- ...together

the Spider-Man cartoon
and toys

were a massive hit
for Marvel,

but just when it seemed like
things were turning around,

a fantastic flawed adaptation

threatened to drag
them down again.

Constantin Films had bought
the rights to The Fantastic Four.

It could only hurt the brand.

Avi Arad's ambitious plans
to sell Marvel toys

depended on controlling
the shows that promoted them,

but the puppet master
soon came up against

a long-standing Marvel problem:

other people controlled
the rights

to Marvel's best properties.

They sold rights
to Spider-Man,

Fantastic Four,
and Captain America.

And The Fantastic Four

had found its way to Germany...

...with producer Bernd Eichinger

and his company,
Constantin Films.

In the mid-'80s,
Bernd Eichinger had bought

the rights to The Fantastic Four
and he was gonna

develop them
into a major motion picture.

Bernd had big plans
for The Fantastic Four

worth potentially millions,

but what he didn't have
was time.

Eichinger was gonna lose
the rights to The Fantastic Four,

you know, on December 31st

at 11:59 and 59 seconds
of 1992

if he didn't start production
on a Fantastic Four film.

To save his rights,
Bernd needed

to get a major motion picture
into production

within months.
Scale and ambition

were sacrificed for speed.

There was really
only one man in Hollywood

who could pull this off:
the legendary Roger Corman.

I'm Roger Corman.

Who, in a classic
Hollywood twist of fate,

sold his company, New World...

...before it bought
Marvel back in the '80s.

Bernd Eichinger came to me

in October and he said,

"I've got this option
on The Fantastic Four,

but I have
a $33 million budget

and I don't have
the $33 million,

but I lose everything
if I don't start the picture

before December 31st."

Roger had a knack
for making cheap movies well.

One of his tricks was to hire
promising, young directors

over established veterans.

A director that fit the bill
for The Fantastic Four

was Oley Sassone.

We were so excited
about the idea

of coming out with the first,
big comic book hero movie

in the Marvel universe.

Well, aside from Howard

and a few others
that don't really count.

We had no idea
we were making a movie

for contractual obligation.

With only three days
before the rights

passed back to Marvel,
production began.

I remember coming out
in my full Doom armor

and the crew, they were
chanting, "Doom. Doom. Doom."

This is like, we're pirates,
you know?

We're going to sail
the seven seas together.

We're gonna take no prisoners.

With one of Marvel's
best-loved comics

finally shooting
for the big screen,

Stan Lee just had to see it
with his own eyes.

Stan came out to the set.
That's the first time I met him.

He brought donuts.

Sitting around
eating pastries

was soon a thing of the past.

Time was money
and the production had neither.

I had to go shoot one scene
of The Thing

running around the streets.
They gave us one roll of film,

no lights.
The casting assistant,

got into The Thing costume
and we pulled up

to a traffic light
and he jumps out of the van

and runs across
an intersection.

Why did The Thing
cross the road?

Hey, move it, pal!

To get
the free lighting for his shot.

They had a lot of street lights

so I didn't have
to light anything.

And for Oley,
this quickly shown

a spotlight
on his predicament.

I kinda suspected
things were going awry

because nobody was in a hurry
to get the film finished.

That was a mystery to Oley

because as far as he knew...

Everyone that
worked on this film

wanted to make something great.

Everyone, except the film's

executive producers.

When the production wrapped,

the inconceivable happened.

The whole film was pulled back

and shelved
and never released.

Roger called me and he
said, "We're not gonna be able

to release The Fantastic Four.
It's out of our control.

It's over."
I felt like I had just

- got kicked in the gut.
- Folks at Fox and legal said,

"No, you can't release
that other film."

In terms of kinda
who hit the switch to kinda

stop this movie,
I think the answer is Avi Arad.

Probably got his hands
on a copy of the movie,

he watched it and thought,
"This is a low-budget,

little movie.
We're a big company.

It could only hurt the brand."

Of course, Avi Arad
would pay handsomely

for the inconvenience,
giving Bernd...

It was $2 million
was the number I heard.

Which, of course,

flowed down to Roger Corman.

He paid me
really quite a bit of money--

'cause I had a percentage
of the profits.

But not the crew.

We thought,
"Damn, we just killed ourselves

making this movie for no money
and we have no movie to show.

- They just took it away."
- But Avi wasn't

content with just
shelving the film. Oh, no.

He said he burned it.

Or destroyed it 'cause
it was such an embarrassment.

I think Avi Arad

wanted to create a impression

of his power over the film
and the franchise.

But some way, somehow...

a copy of the film
escaped Avi's grasp.

I remember going
to a Comic-Con where they were

dodgy VHS copies of it
knocking around.

The film got
amazingly good reviews.

But Oley wasn't done,
and neither was Stan Lee.

In the wake of the fallout,
striking up

an unlikely friendship,
and Stan had a plan.

He said, "Well, look,
I got this comic book.

It hasn't been published,
but it's a really cool comic."

And he pulls this comic book
that they had done

years ago,
it was called The Femizons.

"What do you think?
Let's go--Let's go pitch this."

I remember
we went to Paramount,

we went to Universal,
and nobody touched it.

That's crazy.

Well, at least
The Fantastic Four story

has a happy ending.

Thirteen years later,
Bernd Eichinger

made the big-budget
Fantastic Four.

You done good, kid.

And not just one...

Constantin Films
would produce three big-budget

Fantastic Four films for Fox.

They all have Constantin Films

as one of
the production entities.

But there would be
many, many dark days to come

before those events took place.

Starting with a major downturn
in the comic book industry

in the mid-'90s
and no Hollywood pitch,

no matter how successful,
was going to get them

out of this one.

In the history of Marvel,
the darkest days

were during the bankruptcy.

Off the back
of The Fantastic Four debacle,

what Marvel needed was a hit,

but Ron's seemly savvy
business decisions

like jacking up the prices
of his comic books

had come back to haunt him.

There was this catastrophic
bursting of the bubble.

Comic books
had become highly collectable,

but an oversaturated market
had turned that upside down.

Comic shops started shuttering.

Marvel's
core business was under threat.

There was even talk of checks
bouncing for freelancers.

Um, which, you know,
is, obviously, a nightmare.

Owner Ron Perelman
thought he knew the answer.

Marvel had
to control distribution.

By going exclusively
with this one distributor,

- called Heroes World...
- The move backfired.

It caused a bunch
of other distributors

to go out of business
and exacerbated the problem.

Perelman went searching for

cash-positive businesses
to prop up Marvel,

buying
the trading company Fleer.

At a time
when the trading card business

was in worse shape
than the comic book business.

There was nowhere to hide.

The company had never been
in such dire straits.

Marvel was entering
a death spiral.

Marvel was hemorrhaging money.

They were on the verge
of filing for bankruptcy.

They were literally
selling off bits of the company

- piece by piece.
- The rumor was

they had sold the doors
to the office.

These Spider-Man doors
had been sold on eBay.

The way was clear
for corporate raiders

to sweep in.
Notorious investor Carl Icahn

could smell blood.

You had Ron Perelman
fighting Carl Icahn.

Icahn bought
40 million of Marvel's debt

to wrest control.
The boardroom was turning

into a bloodbath.

In the history of Marvel,

the darkest days
were during the bankruptcy.

To stave off the raid,

Perelman filed for bankruptcy,

but a second front
was opening.

Toy Biz,
the Marvel toy maker

led by Avi Arad,
saw a chance to pounce

on weakened prey.

Toy Biz--Avi Arad
and Ike Perlmutter,

kind of a third party,
and then a fourth party,

- the banks.
- The banks were ready

to call in their loans.

Avi Arad went to the bankers
and said, "Look...

Spider-Man
is worth millions alone."

Avi understood something

millions of Marvel fans
already knew,

the real value of the company
was in its characters.

Those characters,
those ideas

were worth far more
than comic books.

Its own superheroes
could come to the rescue.

Have fun, boys!
I'll tell the Kingpin

you're... tied up.

Take a look
at the intellectual property

of Marvel before
you make the decision.

Avi convinced
the banks Toy Biz

could save Marvel
and trade the company

back into the black.

A court agreed.

A Toy Biz takeover
was confirmed.

Marvel Superheroes

are each sold separately
from Toy Biz.

Marvel IP saved the company.

But still needing cash,

Marvel would
have to sell much more

than its signature doors.

Because they
desperately needed money

so they started selling
the movie rights

to anybody that would take them.

In an almost
multi-verse-type scenario,

Marvel once again offloaded
discounted film rights...

...just like they did in the '80s.

Part of the problem
with the bankruptcy was

Marvel lost all leverage
with trying to get

the amount of money
that they really deserved

for a lot of these, uh,
IP characters.

The numbers
told a sorry tale.

Fox took X-Men...

For $2.5 million.

Sony ended up getting
Spider-Man...

For $7 million.

And Universal ended up
getting The Hulk.

To some
in a panicked boardroom,

it was past time
to turn a page.

They wanted to close the book.

There were people
that were on the board

who just wanted to break it up
and who said,

"Look, we've sold Spider-Man,
we've sold The X-Men,

there's nothing here.
We should get what we get

- and get out."
- But Marvel still had

its impressive stable
of characters,

they just needed a strategy.

And a man by the name
of Alan Fine

convinced Ike Perlmutter
if what they did was is they

looked at merchandising
and they looked at other ways

of making money,
it could become this incredibly

successful company and that
would lead to making movies.

And it did

because that precarious
knife's edge

that Avi Arad was straddling

finally put a Marvel character
on screen

in a way that, well,
cut through.

Blade came out in 1998,
almost exactly at the same time

that Marvel emerged
from bankruptcy.

Just as they wrest control
of Marvel,

they've got a Hollywood hit
on their hands.

Ironically,
it was this prince of darkness

played by Wesley Snipes
that would ultimately

make Marvel see the light.

Blade proved that
a Marvel comic book character

could successfully
carry a movie.

I think
that was a game changer,

um, as far as Marvel
and the way that Marvel

thought about movies.

Blade's success
proved there was

light at the end
of the tunnel,

but to move towards it,
the Marvel of old

needed to be laid to rest.

They said, "Look, we need to do
something radical.

We're gonna start
Marvel over again."

To take Marvel
to the next level,

they'd need to find someone
supremely clever.

Someone that knew comics.

Someone that could unleash
the Marvel beast

and it wasn't
a big-time producer.

No, not a member of the cast.

Nope, not one of the stuntmen.

Ah, there he is.
This guy.

And that would be Marvel's
biggest gamble of all.

Kevin was just some dude.

He was the guy
getting everyone coffee.

And, so,
it's with this coffee boy

that our story
can truly begin.