There was a time when Marvel Studios came under the purview of Marvel Entertainment and its controversial CEO Isaac Perlmutter. That changed when Disney CEO Bob Iger made the decision (partly at the behest of Kevin Feige) to make the divisions two separate entities and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is very different as a result. Now, more details on that split have been revealed.
According to Iger in his new book - The Ride of A Lifetime - that decision came after Marvel Entertainment put forward some pretty shocking concerns about movies with diverse characters.
Iger reveals that Kevin Feige was on board with Black Panther from the start but an unnamed Marvel executive in New York said they were reluctant to let it happen because movies led by black actors often underperformed at the international box office. "I've been in the business long enough to have heard every old argument in the book, and I've learned that old arguments are just that: old, and out of step with where the world is and where it should be," Iger writes.
"We had a chance to make a great movie and to showcase an underrepresented segment of America, and those goals were not mutually exclusive. I called Ike and told him to tell his team to stop putting up roadblocks and ordered that we put both Black Panther and Captain Marvel into production."
Believe it or not, it's also revealed that Feige became so exasperated during the build up to Captain America: Civil War that he considered leaving Marvel Studios altogether.
