How The MCU Got So BIG

9. Filing For Bankruptcy 

Marvel wasn’t feeling so good in the 1990s. The comic industry had slumped, and Marvel was draining money. While Avi Arad headed Marvel Films, the company mainly made animated series, licensed characters to other companies, and made money off toy sales.

In August 1996, Marvel needed a financial shake-up, and Marvel Films incorporated into Marvel Studios. This didn’t stop Marvel from filing for bankruptcy just a few months later.

Marvel sold character cinematic rights to keep themselves afloat, including Blade, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man. However, these licensing deals only helped Marvel in the short-term.

While 1998’s Blade made over $70 million in the US, Marvel only received $25,000. X-Men was also a huge hit, making almost $300 million worldwide, but thanks to a flat-fee negotiation, Marvel got zilch.

Entering the new millennium, Marvel knew they had to do something drastic to keep the lights on.

And that’s when David Maisel, a corporate advisory agent, pitched a strange idea to Arad and Marvel CEO Issac Perlmutter: why don’t Marvel self-finance and self-produce their own movies, keeping 100% of the profit?

It was a solid idea, but Marvel had no cash to implement it. In a bold move, Marvel took out a loan of $525 million from the Merrill Lynch bank to make a maximum of ten films. The catch? If Marvel failed, they would lose the rights to ten of their intellectual properties, including Ant-Man, Black Panther, and The Avengers.

Here was Marvel’s challenge: make a smash-hit debut film, or lose everything. So, which character would Marvel choose to lead their charge on the superhero movie market?