Avengers: Age Of Ultron Was Considered A Failure At Disney – And What Happened Next

[Dead2009]

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/09...d-a-failure-at-disney-and-what-happened-next/

The split between Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has seen the film side of Marvel Studios moved away from Perlmutter’s purview. But what triggered it?

I understand from a Disney sources that, though the two have been at loggerheads for a while, it came to a head over one project, Avengers: Age Of Ultron.

Because, although the film made a lot of money and got okay reviews, it didn’t make enough money. Or get as good reviews as the first. People, basically, didn’t go back for seconds.

And as a result, at Disney, it has been dubbed a failure. Which enabled Kevin Feige to use it leverage to push out Isaac Perlmutter, without whom there wouldn’t even be a Marvel Studios. And forced the disbanding of the Marvel Creative Committee a few months ago.

But since the initial leak of Marvel Studios absorption into Disney, there’s been a rash of stories leaked about the evils of Isaac Perlmutter and the ineptitude of the Marvel Creative Committee, which almost seems like a calcuated effort.

I uhh....okay then.

 

[doctornick]

Yeah, I don't believe that. It's either poetic license by the writer (not being a "failure" but perhaps a "disappointment") or a misunderstanding by the writer. There's basically zero chance that Disney thinks a movie that made $1.4B worldwide on a $280M budget is a "failure".

I'm sure many factors went into Marvel Studios being reassigned within the company and the performance of AoU may have played a role, but I'm not buying that it being viewed as a "failure" is either true or was a major factor in this. Feige has reportedly had issues with Perlmutter for a while and it's more likely that the success of Marvel Studios convinced Iger and other Disney honchos to change things up to make sure they retained Feige.

 

[RandomPrincess]

Yeah, I don't believe that. It's either poetic license by the writer (not being a "failure" but perhaps a "disappointment") or a misunderstanding by the writer. There's basically zero change that Disney thinks a movie that made $1.4B worldwide on a $280M budget is a "failure".

I'm sure many factors went into Marvel Studios being reassigned within the company and the performance of AoU may have played a role, but I'm not buying that it being viewed as a "failure" is either true or was a major factor in this. Feige has reportedly had issues with Perlmutter for a while and it's more likely that the success of Marvel Studios convinced Iger and other Disney honchos to change things up to make sure they retained Feige.

I think that is much more likely. I've also read that Perlmutter almost caused them to loose many of their lead Marvel actors who didn't want to resign as they hated working with him. Here is a breakdown of the rumors that most sites are reporting. Definitely don't think Disney thinks Ultron was a failure.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Disney has a long and well established history of overreacting to minor disappointment, especially when it comes to big projects. The film being considered a failure is well within character.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Disney has a long and well established history of overreacting to minor disappointment, especially when it comes to big projects. The film being considered a failure is well within character.

The same could be said about their successes too. Look what they did to "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" And what they are doing to "Frozen". So I don't doubt they are possibly rethinking their slate of 127 MARVEL films/TV/Streaming/VOD products in the pipeline.

 

[Bairstow]

So was it Faige or Perlmutter that pushed Edgar Wright off of Antman?

 

[doctornick]

So was it Faige or Perlmutter that pushed Edgar Wright off of Antman?

The current rumor is it was the Marvel Creative Committee that butted heads with him and resulted in him leaving. As is, though, that didn't seem to be a problem as Ant-Man ended up as a great movie which is still doing well at the box office.

Anyhow, on the topic of this thread, I'm extremely skeptical of the premise of the Bleeding Cool article and that's not exactly a source I'd trust implicitly. If it got supported by multiple reliable trades, then maybe we can accept the rumor, but right now it's just an unsourced "just believe" us piece that other articles are citing (no one, as far as I've seen, has backed up the claim independently of Bleeding Cool).

I mean, Disney execs might say that Age of Ultron "failed to meet expectations" or something like that, but the film generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits and has a crapload of accompanying merchandise revenue. And will get more revenue from DVD, Blu Ray, etc sales down the road. An executive would have to be completely delusion to describe that movie as a "failure" (unless that is taken out of context) when this is a studio that has had plenty of real failures (Tomorrowland, Lone Ranger, John Carter, etc.) in recent times.

It's pretty obvious to me that the sources for Bleeding Cool's info is from the Marvel Creative Committee or someone close to those folks and this is their way to try to prevent being marginalized from the films. But the entire premise makes no sense. Bleeding Cool's followup article states that Age of Ultron had a ballooning budget due to re-shoots which were Feige's fault because he didn't listen to the Creative Committee. So, Age of Ultron is a "failure", a big gripe was the cost overruns due to Feige's decisions and so Disney executes responded by... given Feige greater autonomy, cutting out a notoriously cost conscious executive (Perlmutter) from the films and getting rid of the Marvel Creative Committee who could have helped if only they had been listened to. I'm sorry, it just doesn't add up.