Disney CEO Bob Iger’s new memoir, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, has been making waves since just before its publication on Monday. One of the more reported matters was his claim that, when he first saw The Force Awakens, Star Wars creator George Lucas wasn’t all that impressed. Yet as many other readers have since discovered, Ride of a Lifetime is chock full of all kinds of additional goodies — like, as Comic Book reports, Iger’s claim that Disney initially balked at buying Marvel because it was “too edgy.”
Per Comic Book, Iger reveals in Ride of Lifetime that, prior to the formation of Marvel Studios and his tenure as CEO, which began in 2005, the company had considered purchasing Marvel Entertainment. However, not all of the board members thought it was a good idea:
This wasn’t the first time Marvel has been on Disney’s radar. Early in my time working for Michael [Eisner], I attended a staff lunch in which he floated the idea of acquiring them. A handful of executives around the table objected. Marvel was too edgy, they said. It would tarnish the Disney brand. There was an assumption at the time — internally, and among members of the board — that Disney was a single, monolithic brand, and all of our businesses existed beneath the Disney umbrella. I sensed Michael knew better, but any negative reaction to the brand, or suggestion that it wasn’t being managed well, he took personally.
In hindsight, however, it’s probably a good thing that Disney didn’t end up trying to purchase Marvel’s massive catalog of characters (that weren’t already licensed to Sony or Fox at the time). For starters, Eisner — who was eventually ousted and replaced by Iger — wasn’t the most popular guy at the company in the end. And then there’s the fact that Marvel Studios ultimately proved itself in popular culture and at the box office. Had Disney prevented the independent studio from ever forming, this might not have happened.
(Via Comic Book)
