Marvel Chair Isaac Perlmutter Moved to Fire Kevin Feige in 2015 but Disney CEO Bob Iger Stopped It
Kevin Feige has done some incredible things with Marvel Studios since launching Iron Man back in 2008. At the time, no one would have thought that it would have exploded into what it became. In those early years, Feige was facing a lot of pressure to keep delivering one great film after another, and I imagine he’s still facing that pressure today. But, it was in those earlier years that Feige had to answer to Marvel Entertainment Chairman Isaac Perlmutter who was also under the influence of activist investor Nelson Peltz.
In a recent interview with CNBC, Bob Iger explained that Perlmutter and Peltz had “a curious dynamic,” and Peltz reportedly wasn’t happy with losing oversight of Marvel’s moviemaking operations. So, in 2015, around the time of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Perlmutter and Peltz wanted to fire Kevin Feige. Iger said of the situation:
“Our filings indicate that both Ike and Nelson were working together to try to encourage the board or convince the board to put Nelson on the board. They have a relationship that dates back quite some time. We bought Marvel in 2009. I promised Ike the job that he would continue to run Marvel after that. Not forever, necessarily. But after that. And in 2015 he was intent on firing Kevin Feige who was running Marvel’s studio, the movie making [operation] at the time, and I thought that was a mistake and stepped in to prevent that from happening. I think Kevin is an incredibly, incredibly talented executive that you know, the Marvel track record speaks for itself. And so I moved the moviemaking operation of Marvel out from under Ike into the movie studio under Alan Horn” (with Feige reporting directly to Horn, who retired from the company in 2021.)
When asked if that created ill will, Iger said, “You’d have to ask Ike about that. But let’s put it this way. He was not happy about it. And I think that unhappiness exists today. And you know, what the link is between that and Nelson, his relationship. I think that’s something that you can speculate about. I won’t.”
Back in 2015, it was reported that Feige actually contemplated leaving Marvel before it was restructured. At the time it was reported that Feige was thinking about leaving the studio partly over budget disagreements regarding Captain America: Civil War, in which Perlmutter and the creative committee both wanted Feige to "scale it down."
Iger stepped in and changed things to where Feige would no longer have to report to Perlmutter at all, and also ended the creative committee's influence over the film side of the equation.
While Feige was thinking about his future at the time, Feige actually met with Warner Bros. to talk about overseeing the DC films! So, if Iger wouldn’t have stepped in to save Feige’s job at Marvel Studios, he might be running DC Studios right now!
Source: Deadline