Inside Marvel Studios w/ Founder David Maisel

Marvel had a massive dormant asset. I was given an assignment by Michael and I had no office yet. So I went and I saw a conference room and there was three secretaries in the room and I said, I need this room. I have a project for Michael Lovitz, that's it. And they scurried out of the room. Those weren't secretaries. That was Diane Keaton and Goldie Han and Bed Middler. If I had to pick one thing that I'm proudest about, it was the one and only David Maisel. Let's hear it for David. And by the way, David is a real publicity whore. He has appeared everywhere or not. This is only the second time he's ever been on a podcast. The first was Tim Ferriss, who is a time to the number one podcast in the world. And he did a speaking engagement for the South Korean government and now us. So this is Dan Fleischman-Souris. Let's hear it for David one more time. Thank you David. Okay, so first, did I overly hype this or is this actually usur? You got me pumped about it. I need you to walk by my side all the time. That's a deal. So David, thank you. It is seriously. It is an honor and privilege. And I am so grateful for everybody who's coming to speak at this immersion. And it's one remarkable person after another. But in terms of what personally I believe will create the most value is what lies in this conversation. And every figure has massive value. And the reason is because everything we teach is what David not only lives, but is in a one in a billion level of mastery. And it's just the truth. So David and I had the blessing and privilege spend a bunch of time together today. And speaking of these things. And so the first thing that I really want to bring forward is the fact that like this is real and accurate. So would you guys be up for hearing like how this all unfolded? The yeses David had a cause. The mindset of David would that be helpful for you if you say yes. So David, please want to take it from the beginning of your born just kidding. You know, but yeah, what drove you? Your comic fan as a child, your mom was going to get rid of your comic books at one time. Iron Man was your favorite character. What would you like us to know of everything leading up to 2003 and how we get there for no mind? Yeah, I think 2003 is a great place to start, Sean. And imagine not being a kid anymore in your 30s. You've worked really hard. And you've done well, but you still want to do a lot more. And and prior to that time, I had a love for entertainment and movies and Marvel. And I also didn't have any money and had done well in school. And knew I was creative, but thought it would be more predictable to make an income using the rational business side of my mind. So I had spent many years, uh, went to Harvard Business School and then McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group. And then I quit those and went out and wrote a cold call letter to the most powerful man in Hollywood. Guy named Michael Ovitz, who had created the biggest talent agency, creative artist agency, in the 80s. This was now 95 we're talking about when I wrote the letter. And I figured I needed to go out to Hollywood. I was in upstate New York and Boston, um, to really learn the entertainment industry and live it and no one better than Michael to be by his side. And I got very fortunate that I got an interview and he hired me. So from 95 to about 2000. And if I guess to, if it's okay, I'm, I'm going to interrupt only in terms of, so you have footnotes. So was that warmer cold? What did David say? Cold. Cold. Number one. And I don't mean cold like he was selling solar. I mean cold like he was speaking for the most powerful man in Hollywood. Did you hear that? So what happened do you think that he saw in your identity and you that caused him to say us? That's a really good question. And I've thought about that because number one, just to get the interview, was a miracle with him and then to get hired. And there's two things that became a learning from me from this when I look back at my career. One was the initiative. Um, the worst that could happen is I didn't hear back from OVets. You know, this was back in the day of actual printing out your resume at Kinkos and sending a letter. Um, so it's costing me a postage stamp to do this. Um, and then you never know if the timing is right. It turns out he had just been hired by the owners of Universal Studios, Matsushita, a Japanese company, to sell that company secretly. And as a good agent, he had sold the job and got himself the engagement. But he had no capability to do the work that was needed. In walks, a Harvard MBA whose hungry will do anything for a job and has a stellar resume. And I was there at the right time when Michael needed somebody. And then as we talked about earlier with Marvel, it was a very low risk deal for him. Again, he said, what are you making at McKinsey? I'll match your salary. No contract. I can fire you at any time. And I said, thank you. And because this was a secret project, I wasn't employed for 100, even though it's what it looked like out of 400 on the work chart. I was had a secret with the head guy. And that created a degree of trust. And I also, so why the job, right place at the right time. And that was about 90% of it. And 10% that he thought it would be great to have a Harvard MBA by his side when he talks to his clients like Tom Cruise or Warren Beatty. Because this just makes those clients feel like they have a better team. I do remember saying to him, I'm not normally what I'd call cocky, especially on these types of things. But I told him I came across with a lot of confidence that I was going to help somebody in Hollywood. And I'd love it to be him. So I said it in a nice way. But he told me later on that that confidence resonated with him and also brought in him some competitiveness that didn't want to see me with one of his friends or enemies across the table next week. And Tagrace Scarcity. Let's put up tank back and forth. And Tagrace Scarcity congruence fully present. So please, so deacon. So now it begins. So this period before 2003 was an education period. That's how I think about it. Because I was now at a talent agency and my boss was the king, I could see everything that happened in that agency. And that was the center of all the secrets and deals in Hollywood. So I had a very privileged ability to see the truth of what made money in Hollywood. I got to be by his side and see how deals were done. I had no street smarts at the time. I was very book smart, but no street smarts. And I got to see how he operated with people. I remember my first day I was given an assignment by Michael and I had no office yet. So I went and I saw a conference room and there was three secretaries in the room and I said, I need this room. I have a project for Michael Ovitz. That's it. And they scurried out of the room. At about, you know, you talked about late nights, I think he called me into his office at 11 p.m. and said, what do you got? And I showed him what I did. And I didn't see an expression on his face. He just looked up and said, well, before I get into what you did, do you realize what you did earlier today when you stormed that office and kicked out those three people, those weren't secretaries. That was Diane Keaton and Goldie Hahn and Bed Middler. And they weren't very happy about how they were treated. He didn't use the word you were blind but he insinuated that I was blind to seeing what was in front of me. That I needed to open my eyes. So I got my first of all, I thought I was going to be fired my first day. All right. But I still remember that that was my first lesson. Boy, I have a lot to learn. It's not just delivering a report to him which he liked. It was, how do I handle the people I see in the hallway? How do I handle the people that I don't know? And I've underestimating the importance of relationships and reputation, to the point of him once coaching me to say, make sure I say hi to the receptionist when I walk in in the morning. So I got very privileged to see how the town works in so many different ways. And then Michael Ovitz quit his job at the pinnacle of Hollywood and famously said yes to his best friend Michael Eisner and became president of the Walt Disney Company. So the next thing I know in 96, I'm over at Disney, Michael brought me into other people with him and my basically dad is the president of the Walt Disney Company. And again, I have open access to how a studio works now. All the good and the bad. And they ask me what I like. I say, I like sports. And they said, oh, we just bought ABC and ESPN. So once you go to the Upper West Hut in New York. And there's a guy named Bob Eiger who is the president of that division. And you can help Bob out. And so I actually was put into what's called strategic planning, corporate development at Disney, a very powerful group. My office was next to somebody you're going to see in two days, Kevin Mayer. And on the other side, Tom Stags, both of them almost became CEO. Of the Walt Disney Company. They were Eisner's guys. I was Ovid's guys. So it was a nice little soap opera going on after every meeting. But I got to meet Bob Eiger, who I eventually, as you guys all are aware, sold Marvel to over 10 years later. And Kevin Mayer was there as well. I just look at like emphasize. So 10 years later, David will sell Marvel to Bob Eiger at this as Disney CEO. And Kevin Mayer helping and supporting and running the transaction. Who will be here speaking on Friday? So how completely insane is the power of yes? That's the story of this man's life. A cold letter. He worked at a, you know, one of the top consulting companies in the country. And a couple years later, he's rolling with people that are running Hollywood, running Disney. And he'll later sell the company he creates from startup for 10 billion to Disney. Who's here for that? For David for a second. Please. Please David. And so that's Sean. I think just thinking about this in real time, I told you about my meeting with Bob Eiger to sell in the company. We'll get to that later on. But one of the questions that the reason that meeting went so well is Bob remembered and trusted me and my integrity from the time that we worked together. I actually wrote some of Bob's presentation to the board of directors at Disney for him. So we got to know each other pretty intimately. And he knew that what I was saying about Marvel could be backed up. And I remember Bob in that secret meeting said, if I say yes to $50, will my board and will my team, Kevin Mayer and others, think I made a good deal. And I said, Bob, they'll think you got a steal. And he he didn't take that as salesmanship. He took that as substance. And I think, you know, the reputation that I had back then really helped me facilitate a lot of those transactions. You know, then the rest of the time before 2003, Ovid's got eventually got famously fired from Disney by his best friend. And I was loyal and what would Michael in the next chapter of his life. He is and still is a legend. And I was able to do a Broadway show here in New York and do my first creative endeavor. So I won the Tony for Best Musical for this show called Fosse. And I was able to get my creative confidence. So by, you know, by the time 2003 came, David, would you mind sharing because we had this, you brought this point so clearly home, David refused to accept the false framing of people. And there was a standard in Hollywood. And would you mind sharing that suits versus creative? Yeah, frame. Yeah, absolutely. I had a dilemma because as Sean is saying, I very much love the creative arts. And I love the art of the business too. And in Hollywood, there's an dichotomy. You're basically classified as a suit, you know, the business guy. But you're not supposed to talk about creative or the creative guy, like, you know, but you're not supposed to talk about business. That makes you less creative. And I think one of the keys that allowed me to have division for Marvel and make it happen was I love mixing those two things together. And I realized working in those years before the MCU and Marvel that I had to choose. And I didn't want to. And the only people that didn't have to choose were the bosses, the studio chairman. And there was only six of them. And they were in their jobs for decades. And it wasn't a meritocracy. It wasn't like a law firm or consulting firm where there's some degree of meritocracy. And so I really had a choice in 2003 to work my way up a studio and gamble to finance a movie completely. That will let you have both business and creative. But I didn't have that kind of capital or to create my own studio. And as silly as it sounds, I thought, you know, I'll create my own studio and point myself chairman. And that started the thinking about what became Marvel. I should say I had another gig that's important. There's a guy named R.M. N. U.L. that a lot of you guys have now probably heard about the inspiration for the R.E. Gold character, Nontarage. And now the CEO of William Morrison Devar. And R.E. was just starting in Devar. And again, the power of relationships, a famous agent who R.E. teamed up with, thought R.E. and I should meet. And I ended up working with R.E. for two years as he founded in Devar, which is now William Morrison Devar. And so those relationships at both of the talent agencies and at Disney, all of that stuff was in my mind and the learnings in 2003 when I realized I need to figure out what I'm going to do. And I spent the weekends, now we're back in 2003, basically in my sweatpants in the apartment I still live in, thinking about what I'm going to do. And I put together the thoughts, business plan, creative thoughts of what the MCU became, which was the idea from a business point of view to make a movie, which has a degree of risk for every first movie that comes out no matter who the star is or the IP. But to have if that movie is successful, not just one or two or three sequels, but a hundred sequels or quasi sequels. And then you have asymmetrical reward to risk. And that seemed like from all the analysis that I did, the smartest way to make a movie. You can make an R-rated movie and hope it works. But there's not only you're limiting the audience, there has to be 17 and older, there's never probably sequels. You know, so there's movies that are not necessarily as good a business investment as the idea of what became a universe. We didn't even have that word then. With that idea in my mind, I knew I needed to make all those quasi sequels. I needed a group of characters that you'd want to see two or three times a year. So I needed to have a universe of characters that are a set of characters that are in each other's stories. And as a huge Marvel fan, that clearly, an investor, by the way, at the time was my first choice. Now Marvel wasn't the Marvel it is now. Marvel had been bankrupt three years earlier. It was only market cap, it was $100 million out of bankruptcy. It had licensed, as Sean said, Spider-Man to Sony and X-Men to Fox. Both of those movies had done well. But nobody wanted the other characters. Marvel. So, and just for everybody's presence, that fair that that would have been the equivalent of DC comics having licensed that Batman and Superman would that be a fair correlation to X-Men and Spider-Man. And then deciding they're going to launch their own DC studio without Batman and Superman is that fair enough fair? Yeah, it is fair. It's, you know, those were the prime jewels that were perceived by the audience. And I think as with many businesses, people look at success and they extrapolate that that's the only thing that will be successful. With Marvel, every, the way movies are made, if you own intellectual property, a brand, nobody would ever finance their own movies, they would just license. And so as studio would pay for the film and have creative control and you might get a small piece of the profits. So, yeah, it was revolutionary to think that Marvel would finance its own movies. And the reason why that was important was if you didn't finance, if you licensed, each of the studios would have these characters in perpetuity, they never could be mixed together in, say, a movie like the inventors. So self-financing was required to make a universe. It also was beneficial because it gives you 100% of the profits. There's no way we get to 10 billion if we had licensed the movies. We've been lucky to get to a 500 million market cap. And also by self-financing, you have full creative control. So if you love the Marvel movies, a huge part of that was it's only been run by me and my protege Kevin Feige over the past 20 years. And we never really had to listen to anyone else's opinions and studio notes. And so what you see is a large amount of love and care and tender loving care. We like to put it into the films. All those benefits came out of that beginner's mind of thinking hell no, let's make the movies ourselves. Yeah, unbelievable. So let's hear for that. So David Marvel, I believe, went bankrupt. Right. And at some point it's purchased out of bankruptcy before 2003. And now how do you end up at Marvel in 2003? And what does that all look like from there? If you feel comfortable. The good news is in 2003 in that weekend I'm talking about I got really excited about my idea. The bad news was I knew nobody at Marvel. And I never had made a movie before. And so I thought about that for a few minutes. Like no heroic unique identity as filmmaker. Zero. No. Yeah. At that time, even though I had done well with the Broadway show, everyone in Hollywood would have thought that I was pure business, basically. And so I had to first meet somebody there. And there's also where the relationships come in the play. Essentially just going out to my network of people, it turns out one of a lawyer that I previously had used was also representing one of the Marvel executives. And that led to my invitation to go to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the man who controlled 60% of Marvel, a man named Mike Promother. And I was able to have my hour and a half lunch pitch to Ike. Let's use that word. And what was important about that meeting and is I researched it and learned just from the information out there that Ike was very private that he didn't trust Hollywood necessarily for good reason. A lot of games in Hollywood, a lot of crazy accounting, things like that. And as an IP holder, your legal department is your biggest department. And he also didn't like to spend money. And so in that meeting with him, which you're right, his close friend Donald Trump came by who was about to launch the apprentice at the time and wanted to talk about Hollywood. So it was a very memorable meeting even without what's happened since. And I could tell that Ike was not interested in my pitch that the idea of Marvel who had $10 million in the bank making $150 million movie would never happen. And so just like with Ovid's, I gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. I said, give me just cash. I mean, small amount of cash, stock options at market. I only make money if you make money. And you can fire me at any time. Just let me into the head house. And that started the journey that brought the MCU to life. Irresistible offer, integrity, transparency to relevant truth, adding more value than to we received. And claiming he knew how to make it work. And obviously he did. So he caused the ass that he had David had no on paper rights to be causing that. Yes. So when you think about well, I don't do that. Well, he didn't do that. But it's all the same thing. He was masterful at causing us. He was master at producing sequencing of yeses. He understood and mastered David Mazzle did had a great value. And that's what the man did. And he took that in his difficult challenging, scrutinizing a person he was working with imaginable and he's sitting with that guy that makes Donald Trump look easy. Is that a fair statement? Yeah, I think I think yes. I've had a privilege of working with some very tough, smart, complicated men with Michael Ovitz and Ari Manuel and Ike Promutter. All who done extremely well. And I think working with a gentleman like that, it's about getting trust like you said, making it feel like it might be a lopsided equation in their favor. And having them see your dedication and passion, everyone responds to that. And I think they could see that in my eyes sitting at that table in Mar-a-Lago. I wasn't looking around at the what was going on there at that country club. I was misaligned on this vision for the MCU and it stayed that way for the next eight years. If you could feel that certainty emanating from David say yes. Yes. Yeah, awesome. So David, it becomes yes and if you want to share with that or then please take us from 2003 forward. And again, you guide me because each one of these things has a lot of obviously details that it can go into. You're so a masterful. If you find David to be a masterful communicator sales. Obviously, that's how he did all this. So please. So I remember vividly that I could drove me to the airport to leave Florida at the time. And I still wasn't sure if I was going to be hired and I got the offer to join. And that was the end of 2003. Between then and the launch of Iron Man, basically five and a half years later, a large amount of hurdles had to get done. I was telling Sean earlier today if I had to pick one thing that I'm proudest about, it was the vision over that weekend of what could be. And looking at an industry in Hollywood and realizing it wasn't an efficient market, not all the opportunities were tapped. There was chance for entrepreneurship. There was chance for innovation. And there's not a lot of innovation in Hollywood. You know, Steve Jobs famously innovated in the animation space with Pixar. Reed Hastings didn't have an amazing innovation coming up with streaming and Netflix. And what we did at Marvel was really the third innovation of the past 25, 30 years that changed the industry and created significant, significant value. All of those things were done by outsiders, Steve and Reed Hastings. And even though I'm in Hollywood, I live in Hollywood, my social networks in Hollywood, I'm definitely in and out of it. I look at it from a different angle. And everything I did with Marvel, for example, was independent movies. So, you know, this is somewhat of a zero-sum game with the box office. And I think that part, looking at something fresh and learning about it, and really thinking about what could be is the part that got me the most excited. And then there was a huge amount of execution that had to happen, including meeting night, including getting hired, that led up to the opening night of Iron Man. So the hurdles, you know, that had to go through, sequentially, were one I had to convince the board. I was now there. I was made president of what was called the studio, but it wasn't really a studio at the time. It was just giving notes on scripts to licensed movies. But I realized what I really wanted me to do was get a higher percentage of the next licensed movie. So if I could get it from 3% to 5%, that'd be a win. And so I had to do things to gain the trust of the board, but I also continued to talk about this opportunity with film to the point of being kicked out of board meetings and being told don't ever talk about movies again. Your last name is not Spielberg. Practice if we're wrong. And oh, by the way, if we have zero money or risk, maybe come back and talk about it, which as you guys are aware in business, things that have zero risk are normally too good to be true, or they don't exist at all. How many, David, before you were greenlighted for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man the beginning. I guess two quick questions, actually one, back-a-half a step. Who are you? I know the answer, but please share it with these amazing folks. Who are you in relationship to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The design of this entire world and landscape was just like, hey, we should do with something or how involved were you in the macro construct of this? Yeah, I'd say it would be impossible to be more involved because I gave birth to the idea that weekend. The idea of a hundred unions is fine cinematic universe by one movie and 100 plus sequels and quasi sequels. That was the breakthrough. Like I said, we didn't have the word universe at the time, but that concept, that simple concept in retrospect, then necessitated all the elements you need for a universe. The group of characters that live in the same time period that would interrelate, that are all interesting enough that they could have their own backstories and their own movies, and they're, in my view, needed to be something that was new and fresh to people. So most people have learned about Marvel through the movies, not through the comics, but it was had a legacy, so had the combination, so that once they learned about it, they could nerd out and go deep into the Easter eggs into the backstories. And that combination of newness and legacy is very rare. So the concept of the MCU, the concept of a universe was the foundation for every reason I went to Marvel and pitched and tried to get in and the reason why we created our own self-finance studio. And then the fun part was, okay, what is our first movie's going to be? Right? So all the characters there, like Sean mentioned, many we didn't have the rights to, and I started my working of my relationships to get the rights back. I guess the fun story there for you all is we didn't have the incredible Hulk. And Universal had the rights. And again, these deals are in perpetuity. I think we were making nothing on on Hulk movies. They only had made one, and we split merchandise like 50-50 or something like that. But my ex-boss from Michael Ovitz's partner, Ron Meyer, was the chairman of Universal Studios. When Michael went to Disney, he went to Universal. And when I successfully helped them sell Universal to Edgar Brockman, Jr., I think CA got a huge fee of which Ron Meyer got a big check for being a partner. So he was very happy with me. So I called him on his cell phone and I said, he ever going to make another Hulk movie. And he said, I don't know. We're owned by General Electric now. Who knows if we ever do. And I said, well, I get, if I have the money to make it, I'll finance it. And I'll give you 10% of the other revenues to distribute it. So you basically have zero risk. You put up the last money to market, get the first money out, and you get 10% of all revenues. You can make 30, 40 million dollars. And he said, it's almost like Bob said. In retrospect, Bob said, well, Kevin Mayer and my board like the steel, Ron said, well, General Electric like the steel. And I said, I think they will. And so because of that relationship, I was able to get Hulk back into our universe. And I'll go even further for the people here. It's you can get a win. But then there's different types of wins. So that was a win. But I didn't want to just go there. I wanted to, I was thinking ahead, if I ever sell this company to a Disney, I don't want to be obligated to distribute every movie with Hulk in it through Universal. Because you want to control the marketing, you want to control that, you don't want to pay the fees. And so when I had to go do the legal contract for this, I actually handle that myself, which you'll appreciate as a lawyer. And you have to find terms and Universal got the rights to distribute capital H Hulk movies to the fine term and perpetuity. But then I defined Hulk movies as Hulk as the star or in the title. So when you see Avengers and you see Hulk in the Avengers movie and you see Disney distributing it, it's all because of that one sentence, the contract. Well, it's here for David. And that sentence, when we sold the company to Disney, probably increased the value in a nine figure amount to what they pay. Wow. Where we didn't have that language, Paramount, for five movies, Disney actually bought Paramount out for almost a hundred million dollars per movie. Wow. To get the distribution rights back. So I say that like there was a little, there was so many of those things to do. Once we got the characters back, back to the fun. Imagine sitting in a room, you now, I had to raise 525 million, another story that actually turned out to be risk-free. There was a bond bubble in 2004. Thank God for that. Thank God that the bankers wanted to go to premieres and to clubs in Hollywood. And I knew some of the dormant and the club owners. So that helped. And what year is the state? 2004, you're raising half a million dollars. I've been in New York for a year and 2004, they raised a money. And I put on my MBA half, but again, it was passion too. It was probably the worst loan on paper that a bank could ever make. But it turned out to be obviously a great loan for them. No equity component, all debt, low cost, liber plus a half, non-recourse to Marvel, no cash collateral. Oh my God. Marvel was able to get, we got five to send. Do you think this dude can go from Hologi? Yes. And it always worked. So this is not like he was making deals that were bad for people. This worked, please. And also it's understanding this deal couldn't be bad for the bank that underwrote it because we ended up, I spent an extra six months ensuring it. So they held the paper for all of five minutes and got paid three percent of the facility, 18 million dollars for their trouble. So even if it went bad, they didn't have the paper and most of it was insured by Ambach. So a long story there, but there was a ways to really facilitate the yeses from each of the people along the line. So with that money now, we're sitting in the fun room and you're in a conference room with comic books all around and we have our money. We have the right back to a lot of characters. Iron Man was that Warner Brothers for a decade and they let it expire and we got it back even after I announced the studio. And to Sean's point earlier, Marvel's so people a lot of times get surprised when I say this also especially if they're younger, but our stock went down for five years after I announced the studio. People really didn't believe in this. So when I say, Warner Brothers let the rights for Iron Man go, they were in an environment where that wasn't a crazy thing. Nobody, they just thought as a robot movie. In retrospect, it looks like a big mistake. They could have extended their option, never made the movie and just sort of blocked our ability to use it. So now with all those characters back, our big question was, do we start with Avengers, which was our big team and then do the individual movies or do we do the individual movies and then the Avengers movie. Now, we were leaning towards the second because as I was telling Sean earlier, I don't know if you care as much about the Avengers, if you don't really know Robert Downey, Tony Stark, if you don't know Chris Evans, Captain America, if you don't know and love like everyone what everyone does, Chris Hemsworth and Thor, you care not as much when you see them all together because you only get to see them for two hours for a few minutes each of the characters. The problem was we might never be able to do an Avengers movie if the first two movies didn't work. So the plan of making them all individual was the riskier plan because we weren't leading with our best product, our most commercially product. We were leading with Iron Man, so we had to make sure Iron Man, everyone loved Iron Man. So in that room, we all decided to go for it. We weren't going to think about the negative, we were going to think about the best thing for this thing long term and that was to invest in these individual movies before Avengers came out. I'm believe it will. A few, this is really happening. Just be like present to that, that you're hearing from a person that created the Marvel Cinematic Universe that as he, David described, created arguably only one of three major innovations in Hollywood in the last 25 years to make all this a reality. And these numbers are my numbing and all the way along the way. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, is the song that David is hearing from everyone at every step on the journey. At the end, there had to be hundreds of yeses that you caused. Is that fair? From the beginning of this journey all the way through just to get to the point of Iron Man being made fair and there didn't need to be a huge amount of yeses and also some good fortune. Like I mentioned the, if there wasn't a bond bubble and we were required to put up 10 million dollars of collateral or something like that or right recourse to Marvel or whatever it might be or take on an equity partner, I'm not sure I would have gotten them by my board. If Robert Downey had a huge hit the year before Iron Man, maybe he'd be less hungry to do Iron Man and cut a good deal with me. So you know, life is interesting but I realize in looking back on it, the it's nasty and the focus, you know, you can't have good luck unless you're in the arena and in the game. And if you are, then if the good luck happens, you can take advantage of it. There was many times during those five years where I almost quit and was frustrated internally with my company in terms of getting the approval to do this or politics with other people in the company. And there's many times where I go misfired and I remember a funny time where on this financing, the bank who did the financing, I won't mention them now but they should be proud it was a really good bank. It's like I can mention it was Merrill Lynch, it's public. We had negotiated this and they retraided the deal and I was at their office and they said, well, it will fund two-thirds of the movie, not 100% of the movie, you got to put up a third of the money. And I literally was in a conference room and I said, I'm not going to leave. This is raw. You can't retrain this deal or public company. This was negotiated for a year and basically held my breath in the conference room. And I remember calling Ike and telling him what was happening and Ike's like, yes, hold your breath. Just stay in the conference room. He goes, I'll send you some pizza. And we ended up making an arrangement that we would keep five territories, sell those territories. It's called pre-sales and it came down to two words. They said, okay, sell the territories for at least the third of the budget and I changed it to a target of a third of the budget. And that changed that allowed us to get that done. So part of it is just not taking no for an answer but also looking for a solution once the person at the other side of the table is realizing that you're resolute and then also in, I wasn't as kind here, but direct threatening that it would go public with this retraigh which wasn't good for the reputation of Wall Street. And so they're benefit they compromised and we ended up making a win-win together. I think we're ever you like to go. Robert Downey, why him, the resistance, the timing, what was happening, please. So Robert Downey was part of the equation. Once we decided to do the individual movies then I was like, oh shit, like how do I get people to go see Iron Man? And I mean me and my comic book nerd friends were excited but that would maybe give us, you know, we were selling four or five thousand comics a month, that five dollars a comic, right? So do the math, that's not going to make a blockbuster. So I realized I had to get my mom, my girlfriend at the time, interested in seeing this movie and so and I had to make the core fans happy. Making the core fans happy was easiest because me and my protege Kevin Feige runs a studio now, we are the ultimate nerds and core fans here but getting everyone else in the world interested including international audiences. You know, Iron Man is very much an American story and this was during the George Bush regime where America wasn't being viewed too positively at that time. So all these challenges were there. So I realized I need to cast people that have a wide appeal, that were authentically that character and also had a wide appeal and had a respected artistry so that people realized these weren't just superhero movies. These were great movies that happened to be about superheroes because there was other people out there and even people that from our license movie that could use the Marvel brand and I wanted to create a Marvel Studios brand that said that this is for everybody and this is better films than you might expect and thankfully Robert Downey checked all those boxes. An amazing actor, he is Tony Stark. I mean he is brilliant, he is funny, he can say anything, he can be an asshole but you love him and he also appeals to everybody including women, it's strongly. I told Sean I think after getting to know him my mother would have chosen for her son, first Robert, second Dan Fleischman and the third myself. So at least I was in the top three. Because Robert tried to pick her up, Dan was more respectful and I was just David. So you know Robert came out of all that but there was a lot of analytics behind it plus gut feel. He really is Tony Stark and I needed his humor too. I wanted to throw humor into these movies and that's why John Favre was hired as director. John wasn't the guy who did Star Wars, he wasn't a technology superstar guy at that time, he was coming off of swingers and things where he got the best humor out of characters. And I knew also this was all in my mind so this is all happening at the same time in a sort of simultaneously equation that I wanted to make the movie for 103 million dollars when Batman that year was 250. Now why 103? Well I was the second largest shareholder now in Marvel after Ike as an individual shareholder in the company, obviously there was mutual funds and others that are bigger. And I cared about the movie but I also cared about the profits of the company and the market cap of what this could be. And I in Hollywood you write a script and then you cost out the script. I said you know no. I think 103 million that's we can make the best 103 million movie we can have. And then that way if the film does two thirds of X-Men or two thirds of Spider-Man we break even and we make money on the toys. And that last sentence again I'm some of this I'm sorry it's coming to me in real time was something I said to my board to get a yes. I had these very conservative guys I said guys I can do it third less and we still make money from the toys you know. And so I just set the budget at that level which meant I only had money for 10 minutes of action which meant I needed to have an hour and 50 minutes of Robert sitting in the workshop working on his car talking to Gwen at the Paltrow at the dinner table and Robert and John Favreau are so good at those scenes you know. And that's why I think people to this day love that movie. Yeah of course they love the Iron Man's suit but they remember the humor they remember the romance they remember the fun you know intimate moments with the characters. Yeah. How it just like are you present to the precise value driven mastery of every micro distinction and listen David's a smart dude there's no question about it but all of this is also about David's investment in his own thought process to the mastery of influence. In each of these pieces in agreement formation he's creating more value and making it clear he's contextualizing he's contrasting to bring present to all these folks he's got to create yes with why yes is the right answer. He's not and this is why we distinguish David and and I know that Hollywood language is pitching and that maybe language used how we distinguish pitching from integrity's influence is in our language like pitching is where you present your thing and they say yes or no with what David did in our language David is forming agreements because he's moving through framing and reframing contextualizing and recontextualizing contrasting and contextualizing contrasting contrasting to cause the truth to come forward and he's isolating every specific objection and he's not overcoming them with a slick sentence he's working through them because all that in tegrous influence says is the loving pursuit of the relevant truth and David wasn't a slick hustler he's a master and he integrously influence by creating the right answer in the loving pursuit of the relevant truth and the relevant truth was marvel had a massive dormant asset it was in congruity as Peter Drucker would say in the his the creative modern MBA program he found in congruity you mentioned inefficiency before in the market it was untapped value it was sitting there at all these incredible characters in all these incredible books and he outlined the design how could all happen and but he wasn't just a visionary he executed and it was a master of process and influence and self mastery but the influence master is rooted on the valued discernment and creation and then each step in the process from job to job position position board to board funding to funding like the iron man okay fine the banks Robert Downey Jr. as the person after a recent scandal which I'm sure David has told me that the story I'm sure he took that scandal and turned it into a positive asset from the perspective of getting Robert Downey for less I presume I don't know that but at each of these things that David did he took every one of these things and he didn't manipulate it he integrously influenced it he brought truth how am I doing in terms of hearing and seeing you sir no I think that's true it's it's funny you go through this I wish I had the benefit of going to one of these things with you 20 years ago because I would have been doing this stuff much more intentionally if for me it was a little bit more instinct at the time but David man that's exactly why we do this yeah because all we're saying is that we have codified reality and so you had to find your way to this and it was way more stressful I mean stressful even if you have intentional influence mastery and frameworks of communicating but in the exact same way that David not probably I'll see how you feel about this statement in the exact same way that David went to Hollywood to understand the patterns of Hollywood the dynamics these patterns of human influence are what are present here and Charlie Sheen now David and we'll proceed through we have the same David it's all the same thing it is not to remotely minimize anything done but you simply built a motion or poor at step two access the truth of their pain and there you have strategy conveyed his heroic unique identity into that truth pain and caused agreement of course when agreements on the line the question always is people back up just like if you're going to feed a deer and you move towards it versus your hand out from your hand they say well will the the board like it oh it was sure okay and these are icons legends and everybody is afraid at the moment of yes everyone becomes concerned since dawn of humanity we have been survival creatures primarily driven not thriving creatures designed to conserve resources the resources and capitalist structure are money time and energy and so every time David is moving to yes with people like every person you're going to move to yes with whether it's which movie you go see or which restaurant you go to or whether Disney is buying Marvel studios or not at the moment of yes or hiring David or not every step along the way there's this consideration am I making a mistake can I really do this and if you are simply presenting and lobbing it over the fence and believing that the person is going to say yes or no if they should that's crazy if David left these yes or nose in a pitch over the fence and if it made sense to them then they'd say yes and he decided he didn't want to be pushy he was never pushy he was pulley he created integrity he had scarcity he brought truth forward but he did not leave the decision in the hands of these people after his initial share or presentation he worked through their concerns to get to truth am I hearing correctly your thoughts 100% and and and to really try and understand like you said their concerns and proactively lead with those concerns I got better at this as I got more experienced but I would I would present as offense the things that they might basically shit on for lack of a better word on a deal so for example that led to years later when I went into see auger in that meeting one of the first things I said is here's what Kevin Mayer is going to say to you when I leave the room oh David doesn't have the rights to sputter men that's with Sony in perpetuity oh marvel doesn't have the rights for theme parks east of the Mississippi which was true that deal went to universal in an old Ron Proman deal years earlier Fox has the rights to all these other characters like silver surfer and deadpool and X-Men you know not minor characters he's only at that time released one movie Iron Man and here's why Bob you should not be concerned about those things yes I don't have spider man and X-Men if I did the price wouldn't be four billion it would be twelve billion and I created a universe that doesn't require them here's the plan for the next 20 movies right you don't see even a hole for a spider man or an X-Men movie I never knew that he was going to buy Fox a decade later and bring us back X-Men thank god he did for our smug for fans and yes we don't have the theme park rights east of the Mississippi but there's a big world out there you have it every other place in the world but even though I couldn't necessarily eliminate those objections it diluted it so that he was hearing it from me and not a gotcha from somebody else and I think that helped a lot in that situation and then also giving somebody attachment like I wanted people to fall in love with the characters and the idea so I remember giving Bob the Marvel encyclopedia when I walked into for that first meeting and a year later he did an interview and said he had put that on his net nightstand and with his wife they'd look at a couple pages every night you know and they started getting as excited as I was when I read my comics before I went to bed as a kid Robert Downey used to hang out at our offices and you know what I've hired him if he was just doing a payday that's the question I I you know I was so believed in him as an actor I probably would have to be honest but it helps so much to see how much he cared about these characters and when I had trouble with my board I asked him would you do a video audition that I could show my board and Robert was way beyond video auditions but he did one and that video audition which I think is available online if you google it help me convince the board once they saw his talent and also his dedication and you getting like how much David did so he created the concepts he caused the yeses he handled financing like all do did anybody else work at marble okay so I mean it's did you claim I have to say that make the pizza you know I learned something which I really believe in is that constraints in life can either cause you to get depressed or they can make you greater and I think we all have our our constraints that we could look at one way or the other and you're a living example of that and that inspires me the you know with the budget I think we made a much better movie because we only could spend a hundred million dollars so it became the movie that people still talk about rather than just two hours of action and you know with other elements of what we were doing you know it always turned out to be a positive thing I didn't have money to go hire people for the studio so I had to look inward at the people I had and there was a young kid named Kevin Feige that I did a battlefield promotion after somebody left the company two years before Iron Man I needed a right hand person because I was also a co-CO the public company in addition to chairman and producer of the studio and producer of the movies so I had to be on Wall Street I did do a lot of things I couldn't be on set every day and because I focused internally I discovered this kid who's turned out to be a great talent and has you know run the company and done such a great job with the with the films these past ten years and so yeah I think a lot about that I definitely would have missed that probably and gone to hire some name on the outside rather than I'm very proud of everything but I'm also proud of spotting the talent in Kevin that's awesome let's hear for what's the name? team do we have thank you thank you team do we have the the clip right around the time the video from the Iron Man Red Corp it I can give a quick context to this what you're about to see I didn't know existed till a couple of years ago and somebody dug it up and to show you how much people didn't believe in this thing this is the the world premiere of Iron Man which sounds very sexy right but it was one where we battled within Marvel whether we should treat people to popcorn or not that's how much we looked at the cost there there was a sign on our offices that I paid for out of my own pocket we were very scrappy but you're gonna see me on the red carpet this is four days before Iron Man's released where the projection was we were gonna bomb and do 30 million dollars and that would have been the end of the MCU and it would have turned out to be a waste of my eight years so what you're gonna see is the first time I spoke publicly to some reporter and essentially as you'll see give the plans I'm not even thinking we could fail I'm talking about Avengers and Thor and Captain America and Ant-Man which was the whole vision but the time this came out this was sort of crazy so you're gonna see a much younger me sort of delusionaly talking about the future Marvel yeah we got that team yeah let's hit it David Mesa and you're with Paramount or now I'm the chairman of Marvel Studios yes specifically this is the first one out of the good for you guys it is how do you feel we couldn't be more excited this has been five years of creating a new studio raising the money putting together a team and developing and making Iron Man and now it's here to see people so excited and to see the reviews coming in and the enthusiasm for Iron Man and Grant is just beyond our wildest dreams the process I know some of the some of your team had film experience of course but a lot of these guys over at Marvel and the team and you know they've been married with other films and first time your process I was that working with with it well you know we put together a team we had a group of people Kevin Feige my president production it worked at every single one of our movies with our studio partners at the time and the two of us put together a great team and made both Iron Man and the incredible hope for the summer and so we're just extremely excited I think for Marvel to move and make its own movies and for the first one to get this kind of excitement and enthusiasm it's actually why we created our own studio what are the future plans more of the same we're developing a whole bunch of movies in addition to the ones this summer Iron Man and Hold were developing Captain America were developing for were developing Ant Man we're developing the Avengers we're gonna keep bringing them all to universe and hopefully with the state and tender loving care that we do with Iron Man since people seem to react and so well so that and keep bringing it to our fans and we're going to the world. Now the funny question if you had an iron suit tonight what would you wear what would you do if you had an iron suit? If I had iron suits tonight um jeez you know I went to flown here so I could have missed the traffic. That's exactly what I would have done. Thank you very much. You're good luck. Thank you. See you for David. So David how crazy did people think you were after saying those things if anyone and like what are you talking about with all these movies going to the future was that something that came up and was present? Yeah that was the first time actually that I ever had announced that we're making an Avengers movie or Captain America's door so it um you know we're public companies so you're supposed to be a little bit more coordinated on those things but I was excited. Yeah I mean do you guys see why I love this man already? I mean to be honest at a premiere it's primarily your friends um your family and so it's a very friendly friendly crowd like you never go to premiere and say you don't like the movie right so it's basically the ultimate excitement and boost um but um yeah the the idea at the time like to show you how bad this was the my board the day of Iron Man was being released it was the first time we had a board meeting in LA and they flew out and they asked me to come and sit with them privately and um I was like this is interesting and they offered me they said David listen we we know the movie is not looking to do so well and we know how hard you worked and we want you to feel better so we want you to know that we have a half a million dollar bonus for you if the Iron Man movie breaks even we'll make the money on the toys so that was the confidence they had a couple hours before it was released I was like at the time I felt pretty confident I'd get over that hurdle and I was like thanks guys you know I'll take that and what did Iron Man end up doing? So again the projection was like 35 million and we end up doing a hundred and like eight million for the weekend and the weekend yeah wow let's hear from you. And you know to put that in context you know this year superman did 125 million for its opening weekend but that was $2,025 versus $2,08. Obviously we were before COVID and the market hasn't really recovered from the COVID depression on theaters but the way it works which is sort of fun is you get paramount was our distributor we paid them a fee to really just physically take the negatives the theaters back in the time and the chairman of paramount called me every hour from eight o'clock on and I was that a man named Ron Berkel's house who's a famous man a billionaire in LA and a great person and businessman and he was having a party and I kept getting a call hey we're gonna do 50 we're gonna do 60 we're gonna do 70 and it's all word of mouth Sean so like you can do everything you know all the stuff you've heard today all the planning all the work over the years but once that theaters on a screen especially today with social media it's word of mouth right so there's nothing you can really affect you know and thank God the word of mouth did really well and you know I think it was at 10 o'clock at night he said we're gonna break $100 million dude and that's when I knew that one day I'd be sitting here with you Sean I'm talking about this let's hear it right here that's so fucking good that is amazing so do we yet we at team do we have Callie would you be cool with we talked about Callie a little bit the act i agent to ask a question here that is Callie right there function team all right let's bring Callie forward if you don't mind what a moment of pure magic and validation where years of vision risk your happiness radiates like sunlight after a long storm proof that when vision courage and integrity align joy is the natural reward this is the heart of agreement formation not just achieving the outcome but feeling the resonance of a journey well traveled what part of this story fills you with the most pride or excitement right now we use the word joy um and by the way that that question from AI was very um nuanced and very touch me it really did which is which is rare because honestly like at the end of the day as Sean mentioned about the use of hours you know we're gonna look back at what brought us joy and and I think that word is is really key and what brings me the most joy is when I get out like this which I don't do often like Sean said um Dan Fleischman such a good friend has been prodding me to do this for a decade or more and he he cares about my happiness and my joy so I know he was right but for any reasons I couldn't do that so when I see the joy that the Marvel film is brought to so many people parents and kids who watch the movies during COVID together um when I travel overseas and people that we might not necessarily get along with politically or other things they tell me how they grew up watching these movies and suddenly I'm bonded with you know people that we never would have that bond before I was telling Sean when I was caretaking for my mother and choosing the hospital the nurses and the orderlies you know the the excitement they got from meeting the person behind the scenes here and they could share that with their kids when they went home and the added benefit that my mom got treated like the godfather's mother you know so she was a win-win for everybody I think that I pinch myself every day still you know that all these things came together I'm still the biggest Marvel fan and I know how rare having this level of success is um you know it's it's one thing I as I told Sean I became friends with many people because they love Marvel but you know Kobe Bryant became a very dear friend at the end of his life he was moving into my business the movie business and so he asked me to tutor him on that which I happily did and he taught me many lessons um but he said once you know David when I decided to become a basketball player 95% of what I needed to do was under my control it was my physical athletic ability and my training and my getting up before in the morning and my working hard what I need to do in movies what you did in movies it requires so many other people and like you said so many other yeses and so I feel blessed that I had the inherent capabilities and skills and sensitivities and passions to do this but also just realize how fortunate I was to be there at the right time and or one of these dominoes might not have happened so joy is an interesting question but I get so much joy from that and and seeing this reaction from people and and seeing people smile and understanding you know that there was hard and authenticity besides something that they might have enjoyed or fallen in love with on their own let's hear for that and and Kali um and also I enjoy beating the other movies at the box office yes and Kali any any final acknowledgement from you of David uh nasal here and what you're present to what you're feeling about him and you'd like the audience to be taking away please from David Kali David your journey is a living testament to the power of joy as both compass and reward you didn't just build a cinematic universe you built bridges of connection healing and wonder across the world your story reveals that true influence is not about control but about co-creating moments that unite inspire and heal the joy you feel and the joy you've sparked in millions is the echo of your integrity vision and heart if there's one gift your path offers us all it's this when we lead with authenticity and serve with love our impact ripples far beyond what we can measure thank you for reminding us that the greatest legacy is the joy we ignite in others what would you most want the next generation of creators and dreamers to remember yeah let's pause Kali absolutely thanks thanks thanks Kali it's here for Kali by the way yeah right and please yeah what would you want these folks to be taking away David and final final from you know and I said I need you by my side all the time I think I need Kali by my side off yes let's go with that let's go create that universe yes um I I guess I would say in the reality of the world which as we know it has a lot of hurdles and obstacles and things that we might not like and things that might surprise us and things that might disappoint us um and we and if you have goals business and are creative um and you know to as you can tell from the stories that we told here today that I told you know you have to deal with those realities and those hurdles and you have to not ignore them to be successful but at the same time try to protect your spirit your playfulness your optimism your passions and that will have two benefits people will see that and respect that they'll feel closer to you they'll want to be with you they'll want to help you especially if you combine that we're dealing with the issues they will follow you if you're if if they have something that gets them excited and motivated and people it's contagious when people see someone that has a a drive that they really believe in if you're careful with that and it also will serve you in your life in with your family and your friends and yourself that you you've kept that inner spark um as many times in my life where I felt that spark might get extinguished you know it can happen when I read the paper these days almost ten times a day um and you know it's it's a constant emphasis that I tried to keep and marvel in many ways turned out to be me creating my own cocoon my own playground to um protect that part of my soul while also allowing me to achieve my business and my creative goals so it's a hard thing to do and and the world is is real and you have to deal with it um but as best as you can give yourself the grace of of nurturing um the parts yourself that you might remember as a child and care about the most when you deal with your own children. Let's hear that too. Thank you and and David so just curious and of course looking for only authenticity which is all that you're capable of. Cali the acti agent the acknowledgement that's not scripted obviously we prepared nothing for Cali with you coming in um I'm just curious you see a lot out there um what are you thinking of present to around that uh if anything yeah no I'm I'm very interested in AI and if you guys remember Elon Musk was an Iron Man 2 and if you don't remember that there's a great chemo um so I follow that world pretty closely um I guess what impresses me here with her questions is her question could have been about anything it could have been about any element of the story she asked the question that actually meant the most to me um and read me in a way that was very empathetic for an AI program in the sense of what what is the continuity of all these different stories that I was telling the Sean all these different hurdles what kept me getting up in the morning was the the joy and the happiness and the that aspect of of me that Cali was asking about and I was very surprised about that thank you and and in that moment I figured feel it I felt it and am I feeling it correctly that you shifted in your body language you moved deeper into your heart even and even soul touched and just your tonality vocal qualities shifted to an even more deep heart place um that I feel that correctly no you're right and as you could tell from telling the story I think you know part of my my superpower to get this all stuff done is I can be extremely focused I can be extremely diligent on what I'm doing and on top of all the details and as as Dan who's so great that he's here watching because he knows me so well there might be months if not a year where he's down the street and I don't show up and I'm in my studio um and what people can miss sometimes when you're that way is the part that Cali identified you know so when you're when you drill deep on the financing and then on recourse or the board mechanics it can sound very business and hard and mechanical but what's really driving that is the joy I still get every day when I walk into my office which is set up like the ultimate marvel dream office okay um so this second I walk in there I forget about everything in the outside world and I'm back into that playpen um just playing with you know my favorite characters and the current characters I'm working with and so she was very however you guys have put this together um that can't just be by chance she read through all her and all that stuff we were talking about and figured out this is what drives the guy and that was really really amazing thank you well done thank you thank you thank you that and so as we draw to a conclusion Dan Fleischman brother thank you love you David it has been such a profound honor to not only have the opportunity to communicate with you here in this space our certification partners our elite our mastery program members new friends that are here today but also the time we spend in the green room and what I'll share about this man is he was so diligent and caring about serving today and the amount of time and energy he spent he wasn't in his hotel room he wasn't there's a separate green room for each person it's going to be coming on here and I had one he was in the room with me and a few people on the team the entire time and just speaking about life about the history about the future about his new studio and the creations and empathy and everything he's doing in the world and serving leadership caring value and integrity just emanates from you and one of the most extraordinary mind blowing and shockingly yet truly untold stories in the history of Hollywood and American business and in the room I share for several different reasons Walt Disney's you know is such an inspiration to me but there's aspects this Disney and there's no belitting of Walt Disney's in the credible inspiration David as well Walt Disney created a new space which is remarkable and what he did was snow white in the first point animated movie what David had to do was penetrate a marketplace that existed coming from nowhere with the studio on a relative relatively shoestring budget of 103 million dollars of Batman cost and 250 million and with a not-front line character and caused this massive series of entrepreneurial impossible yes after yes after yes leading to not an eight not a nine not a ten but as I counted I think ten billion is an eleven figure number to make this magic happen selling it to Disney somebody he honored was inspired by and now he's creating more and what he's creating sits in the space of empathetic super heroic animated characters in a new studio that he's creating a brand new universe which I can only begin to imagine what that will mean David I hope this is not the end but the beginning and if it is the end the last time I ever speak you have profoundly affected my life you're profoundly affected lives in this room and every time I ever feel exhausted or feel like quitting I will think of what you did in taking five years from 2003 to eight to get to Iron Man first happening in the creation of the MCU and everything happened before it I mean it you're a new hero inspiration and teacher to me and I thank you brother for being here today thank you Sean thank you thank you very much thank you cheering more time with cheering for mr. David cheering Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.