disney recently went through the never-enjoyable routine of downsizing to cut costs, and laying off quite a bit of its staff was apparently a necessary part of that campaign. However, it is not only ordinary employees who are subjected to this, but also those at the top. By a report from Collider, Marvel Entertainment chairman Issac “Ike” Perlmutter has been officially fired as Disney considers incorporating the entity into its larger trade conglomerate.
While Marvel has been on a bit of an unstable roller coaster lately when it comes to its latest cinematic releases, there are many who would argue that Ike Perlmutter was a significantly controversial figure who often steered the MCU in the wrong direction for all the wrong reasons. For starters, Perlmutter was notorious for being a ruthless, profit-oriented killer. Ironically, his extreme cost-cutting and highly biased approach to business decisions was a huge factor in saving Marvel from bankruptcy years ago in 1997. Iron Man (2008) movie officially launched the new MCU, Perlmutter still held the reins tightly to everything Marvel produced or attempted to produce.
The real reason(s) Perlmutter was let go
While Disney is clearly looking to make cutbacks as it reconfigures and consolidates its businesses and all of its upcoming projects, there’s likely more to Perlmutter’s firing than just one person off the payroll. He had built up a rather unsavory reputation over the past decade at Marvel Studios, especially Kevin Feige. Particularly after emails were leaked at Sony Entertainment in 2015, Perlmutter had become known for his sexist, homophobic, and racist views, at least when it came to what he had Marvel produce. It turns out he was the main point of conflict when it came to movies Black Panther (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), ed Black Widow (2021). While Feige would have liked to pursue at least one of those projects much sooner, Perlmutter argued that superhero films starring a female lead or a person of color would not succeed nearly as well. He refused to give the go-ahead for any of those movies while simultaneously pushing to have Feige fired so he could take full control of Marvel Studios as well.
This all explains why both Black Widow And Captain Marvel notably came out at rather unusual points in the MCU’s main storyline. Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, a very powerful and integral character in the war against Thanos, first appeared in a post-credits scene in Avengers Infinite War (2018). Her origin movie Captain Marvel came out the following year and hit theaters barely a month before the Monumental Avengers endgame (2019) film, barely giving audiences time to absorb her introduction to the MCU. Stranger still was the Black Widow movie released two years after Natasha’s death Endgame, and just after the peak of the pandemic that briefly shut down the film industry. The timing of both was clearly not very well executed, but at least now there seems to be a clear reason for that. With Perlmutter’s departure, there could be a shift in a more positive direction for the MCU, which clearly needs it now.