How Iron Man Saved Marvel: David Maisel Shares the Real Story with Sean Callagy

26:18And there's games, and there's a lot of people there with egos and a little bit of narcissistic type of attitudes. It's definitely a strange town. And so here comes a Hollywood person pitching on risking money. It was just really not going anywhere. What I realized is luckily that I was dead in the water. So I threw out one last offer that he couldn't say no to. And Trump was witness to this. And to this day...

26:53Sean Callagy:By the way, is this a crazy story? If you like this, it's a crazy story. Say yes. Like if you've seen a Marvel movie, say yes. if he doesn't get the yes there's no MCU there's no Avengers because he would have licensed the properties out over the next six months or a year and those deals are in perpetuity unless the other party volunteers to give it back so I said listen just hire me if you've been to Disney Florida there are no Marvel characters but there are in California because Marvel licensed the characters to Universal east of the Mississippi. You got it. Sean has the best memory of anyone I've ever met.

27:40Sean Callagy:No, thank you. Thank you, dude. And so, yeah, so when we went to, I took Selena to Disneyland, Florida, and she actually noticed this. So we were in, I'm sorry, Disneyland, California, and we saw Spider-Man, and she actually loves Spider-Man. and we went this time to Disney World and her cousin is a crazy Spider-Man fan. He was coming and she's like, Kevin's so excited to see Spider-Man. I said, well, honey, he's not in Disney World Florida and she's like, why? He's in Disneyland in California and so I began to discuss with my four-year, 11-month and 30-day-old, the day before birthday, daughter licensing deals between studios and mentioned you.

28:27Sean Callagy:But yes, back to you. And it's even worse because Universal's theme park right next to Disney World has it in Orlando. And so every time now Disney makes a Marvel movie, they're making people want to go to their competitors theme park work. It's a weird thing.

28:50Yeah, it's, and so what I said to Ike is, hire me, give me a chance to show you what I can do. I know he doesn't, at that point I picked up, he doesn't want to pay money for things. So I said, pay me a very small salary just so I can pay my rent. And I don't make money unless you make money. So give me stock options and market. And then to close it, I said, and you can fire me at any time, whatever reason, no penalty. So none of this for cause, not for cause. It was like, he literally to this day says, I couldn't say no to that. I had a free option to look at you, and I don't pay you unless you make me more wealthy, and I can fire you anytime.

29:38Unbelievable. So that's how I got in. And he almost fired me at least eight times over the last six years. And I almost quit six times.

29:46Sean Callagy:Soon was the first one. So you started. It was probably within a month. Was it paper clips and paper? No, it would be my passion and tenacity. And him wanting me to have other priorities in the company than the studio. Which for the first year, I took seriously. and realized I had to sort of earn my stripes. My board of directors was a bunch of 70 - and 80-year-old turnaround guys, bankruptcy guys.

30:28But I remember every board meeting, I would raise the studio. And the second time I almost got fired when I was told, don't ever talk about a movie studio again at a board meeting or you're never going to be invited again unless we have zero risk and all the upside, which doesn't normally happen in business, right? So that was, and then I scurried for a year or two. Luckily, there was a bond bubble in 2004, and so I got a deal for$525 million of debt financing, so we kept all the equity. That's unbelievable. without great terms that I and the board can say no to. No non-recourse, no collateral to speak of.

31:18Sean Callagy:So we love movies, we love the power of story, but what you're hearing from David right now is how critically important it is to understand money and value. Yeah. And the innovative mastery of all the different ways to share and look at value. And if we're uncomfortable at these diverse areas of mastery, we're not going to achieve the things, which is as a footnote for everybody, if that's not your mastery, you're not David, you're not only a Harvard MBA. Harvard didn't make David. Harvard, I'm sure, taught David some things, but this is a man who developed the muscle, the skill of discerning value, being creative which you're gonna ask some questions about how why but while it's not David yet in your pocket Athena everybody out here you can certainly masterfully up level where you are to begin to think of like hey if I was David Maisel and I'm looking at this thing through the prism of Marvel what are ten different ways I could assess this ecosystem merger to create unique shares of value if these people don't want to write a check and I really want this to happen or if they should write a check and they're not seeing it, how can we communicate about it?

32:44Sean Callagy:Use the tools that way. Is that landing? If it is, say yes. Okay. So, yeah, back to you, David. What I'd love to get to in a few minutes, if you wouldn't mind, is a powerful question about all of this, I'd love you to finish this point, but about how much you might be undervaluing yourself in some of this because something dawned on me. And let me go to it and then we can go back if we need to. It's this. You took this property, what you saw to be a potential cinematic universe, but I wonder, and has anybody ever asked this question, could you have taken any number of properties and done this.

33:29Sean Callagy:How much of this was your mastery as visionary of the complete cinematic universe and what you then did once you made that decision? We're going to take this and make it a cinematic universe because Tony Stark in the Iron Man comics wasn't Robert Downey Jr. You did that. And I didn't think, the last time we spoke, and I think. And Robert. And Robert, right. And Robert. Right. And, you know, Pepper wasn't, Gwyneth Paltrow, right? And so, and I know you're an incredibly humble man, and I think you're at times a falsely modest man, meaning you diminish your accomplishments, but it just dawned on me, yeah, like, that was really interesting, but it was so interesting that it was in bankruptcy, the Marvel property.

34:32And Sean knows there's an article right outside my office from the New York Times in 2007, a year before Iron Man came out, talking about all the reasons Marvel Studios would fail. And so I leave that right by my office to remind me of that era. In fact, I announced Marvel Studios on CNBC in 2004, and our stock went down for four years. How long? Four years. How long? Four years. How long? Four years. Yes. And it was worse for me because, as I mentioned, all my upside was stock options that were now under market for four years. So, and, but, you know, Ike and I talked about this, and once I started showing what I could do, and he got confidence, he ended up buying back a third of the company at that cheap price, which was very valuable when we sold it to Disney.

35:38So it was taking lemonade and making lemons from it, you know, having faith in the situation. Instead of getting depressed if your stock goes down, if you really believe in the fundamentals of an investment, that's the time, like Warren Buffett would say, where you buy it on sale, you know, from where it was. And so we bought back Marvel stock on sale. But to your question, it's a really good one, Sean. And I think, I don't believe any group of IP, no matter how talented the producer or the visionary is, can become what Marvel became, a cinematic universe. There's elements that need to be in it.

36:24And I like to combine analytics with creativity. And this is an important point because in my specter of Hollywood, you, as a Harvard MBA, you are viewed as the suit, as the business. And if you talk creative, you're out of your arena. And if you're a creative person and you talk about business, you're like diminishing your creative magic that people might trust in you. I love both. And I was known, because I came with my Harvard MBA, and I got my first job because of that with Mike Ovitz, as that guy, right? The business guy. And in fact, when I was at Disney, I was with Kevin Mayer, our mutual friend in corporate development and strategic planning, right?

37:10And I knew that creatively was really what my passion was. And the only way I could do both analytics and creative was to have my own studio and make myself chairman. So the reason I had the thought to do Marvel Studios was I wanted to solve that puzzle. And then secondly, I knew I could try to become studio chairman. They're the only people that can be whatever they want to do because they're the boss. And I could work my way up one of the six studios, but that would take 20 years. And more importantly, I would have lost my soul. I would have had to become a different person. And Marvel was a cocoon for me, where I had my, you know, I could play as studio chairman and not change the playfulness and the way I wanted to be personality-wise.

38:08So when I think about universes, Marvel, I didn't have to look at a second one, because I just instinctively saw they live in the same universe in the comics. these characters are so deep in terms of who they are even outside of being superheroes and it was a combination that the movies would be new to most 99 % of the world so they discover it and discovery is so enjoyable for people they discover it with their friends, with their kids, or their parents but there's a legacy that it's built on so that people realize wow, there's like gravitas to it and stuff I can geek out on and go into. So it had that great combination of legacy but still new to people and a natural universe.

38:59And after Marvel, I quickly found something else I thought could be not a universe but elevate IP to a point that people would be surprised by. And that was with all things Angry Birds. and at the time it was just those dots on the screen, and I went to the owners, and they were about to license the movie. I said, no, no, we'll make it, and they had so much cash from the game that raising money there was easy. They just had treasury cash to use for about 75 million, and it was fun to invent a mythology, and everyone thought that movie was going to fail because in 2016 when it came out, Angry Birds had collapsed in popularity.

39:48They didn't navigate going from paid games to free games in the way other competitors did. And the brand wasn't cool anymore. And so that for me was gratifying because it was another surprise and doing it again. But then after 2016, and actually after the sale of Marvel, I got approached with everything. Kate, can you help us with this to become a universe? And said no to everything because it didn't meet what I really thought it would be. And then I was fortunate, which we can get into later, to find something that James Cameron really loved and my favorite comic book artist who I collected. And when James Cameron stepped aside, I was able to grab it.

40:37And that's what I'm working on now. So you have to have the fundamental pieces in place, But then it's a lot of decisions and a lot of vision that have to be done. It's not as complicated as Elon's spaceships, which, you know, he famously talks of that there's like 20 ,000 things that have to go right on any space launch. And if one of them doesn't, the whole thing falls apart. And it's not as complicated as that, but to go from the IP to something that's a new worldwide mythology or something that people really love in that deep way requires a lot, a lot of decisions. And one of them you raised earlier, like, how do you take something that's got dedicated fans and make them happy, at the same time bring it to the world?

41:34And so with Iron Man, we made it a love story. with 10 minutes of action. And it was like an old-fashioned love story where, like from the 50s, where two people love each other, but they won't admit it, you know, Robert Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow. And you're an audience saying, kiss already, you know, and they don't. And adding in humor with letting, I made a decision that had really never been done. In Hollywood, you freeze a script. You freeze a script before you shoot the movie. because every day on a live action movie is$400 ,000 or$500 ,000. And so if you miss the day, you have to spend another half a million.

42:15And there's unions, there's rules. And so you don't want people changing dialogue because that could screw things up. But I left an hour a day in the schedule for Robert to improvise. And I'd say at least half of the comedy in Iron Man came out of him riffing and saying funny things. it was dangerous and because once an actor starts doing that they keep wanting to do that and you could miss your days unless their lines get taken you know

42:52Sean Callagy:so how you know in that frame you have Iron Man you have these properties and you're making a superhero movie that you turn into a love story with 10 minutes of action right I could only afford 10 minutes as well that made it easier. But now in this conversation of innovation optimization, how do you decide to do that? What was it? If 100 people look at Iron Man in the comics, they're not, a million people look at Iron Man in the comics, they're not making the movie you made. Right. And this is one of the greatest superhero movies ever made by so many critical reviews financial success, all of it.

43:39Sean Callagy:How do you get to that? And again in a second, there's a question before that, which is why Iron Man is the first movie. And that was also I'm proud of as a vision because a lot of people recommended, you know, you have one shot and that go with Avengers. Go with your biggest commercial property and not rely on just one superhero. You know bring everyone together then every some people will like Iron Man some people like Thor You know you attract more people and we're getting for keep jumping in I'm just like one really contextualized so what I'm hearing you say And what you're hearing David say I believe is that he opted not to go with the ecosystem at Marvel of Avengers with a hundred thousand people reading monthly, but one with only 5 ,000.

44:33Sean Callagy:And this is landing on me. I can't even imagine the feedback you were getting for that. Oh, we had many debates internally. Yeah, many debates with the board and with my team. But the feeling was best to introduce the characters in their own movies so that you have two hours to get to know them, rather than if they're in a two-hour movie together, you maybe have 15 minutes with each of them really. And so if people fell in love with Tony Stark, with Thor, with Captain America, with Hulk, then you bring them together in the Avengers, there's so much more ties to the customer. And you're giving them something to look forward to.

45:15They love the characters individually. The risk with that is if Iron Man failed, we're not sitting here today. So it was easier for me because I knew that my mother, my girlfriend at the time, they would not go see just a regular superhero movie, you know, a comics movie. But I knew Tony Stark was such an interesting character outside of the suit of armor. And I think that's what Warner Brothers missed is they saw a guy in a robot suit. They saw a robot suit. They didn't see the man inside the suit. And it's the man inside the suit which was so important and such a compelling story.

46:02And so we went with Iron Man. And then in making these decisions about how to both show the movie and market the movie and the casting, that's where when you talk about instinct and combining with when you're focused on something that you're passionate about and you don't deviate, somehow you get so much information because you're looking at everything from the prism of what your goal is. And so when I quit McKinsey and came to Hollywood, all I did for the next six, seven years was think about how to make another Star Wars, right? And that's what inspired me. and how can I do it in a way that wasn't just three movies at the time, but that could be many, many movies.

47:00And I would just soak all that information up. You know, little things like, I was able to do a Broadway show before I did Marvel, and I had a lot of success. I won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1999 for my first Broadway show.

47:15Sean Callagy:And what is Harvard MBA winning Tony Awards, creating the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right, and then taking a video game that was incredibly popular, then failed, and turning it into an incredibly commercially successful movie, Angry Birds, and there's like dot, dot, dot, and much more. Yeah, and one of the things I learned from Broadway, Broadway is a great medium because you take it on the road outside of New York. We went to Boston, we went to Chicago, we went to L.A., and you're changing the show every night, and you're seeing audience reaction right away, right? and the reviewers have a pact, which I guess isn't legally binding, that they won't review the movie until you say it's opening night in New York.

47:58So you even have another month or two in New York to fine-tune the show before the powerful reviewers come in. And I realized halfway through this road trip with the show that the beginning had to be amazing and the end had to be incredible. So everything in between has to be good, but what people, if they don't feel into it, if you don't open their minds to their experience in the beginning, and if you don't close with something that causes them to literally glee with excitement as they're leaving the theater, you're missing a huge opportunity. So when I went into Iron Man, I really worked on the first scene and the last scene.

48:39and you know we have first seen he gets blown up so there's a dramatic thing that happens

48:45Sean Callagy:how do you know that i mean i couldn't agree more but how did you know that it was it was observation and testing um combined with then thinking psych through psychology why that would be the case. And I realized it's the case with everything. You meet somebody new, if the first couple minutes are just person's head down and nothing happening, it's hard to recover from that. And it's always good to end with something. Even all of us go into long business meetings and it could be two hours long or an hour long with somebody and and it can get into topics and have a different energy flow. But then at the end, if you're like full of energy and talking about, you know, referring back to things that they said, showing them that you listened and seeing them as a person and talking about future things, that's what people remember.

49:47And so it's experience, testing, trying to understand why. and then trying to,

50:01and that creates what sometimes people call instinct. Like when people ask me, why did you have the vision for Marvel when no one else had it? I don't really, I can't really answer that, but it wasn't just like I sat in an ivory tower and the idea popped in my head. I had worked so hard learning the industry and that gave me a better chance to have the vision and the things that people would say are very hard to get and then once you have the vision, the tenacity to stay with it and make sure you don't get distracted or give it up too soon and here

50:47I knew people would be walking into Iron Man I felt, thinking another superhero movie, how's this gonna be different? Who is this Marvel Studios making their own movie? So when we started with ACDC back in black, and that rock and roll was going, and the people just hadn't heard that before in the beginning of a movie. And then we ended, if you remember, with him surprising everybody, including comic fans, where Tony Stark never says he's Iron Man. He keeps the Iron Mans as like bodyguard. He says, I am Iron Man. And that just threw everyone for a loop. And then we end with Ozzy Osbourne, I am Iron Man.

51:31And people are dancing out of the theater. And then we gave a post-credits scene too with Sam Jackson saying the Avengers Initiative. That was just inspiration that Kevin Feige, my president of production, had actually after we finished shooting. And we had planned it, and we had to call all the actors back for half a day and shoot that scene. And that was the birth of, which is now common with a lot of films, having some special scene at the end. So it's a, I'm very proud of the vision, and it's been fun to replicate it. Broadway was another sort of early version of that to fine tune that show.

52:13we were an underdog there too for Best Musical that year I never thought it would win that but and which show was that David? it was a show called Fosse which is Bob Fosse's great choreographer and it was his life told how cool is David?

52:34Sean Callagy:make the sound of how cool David is it's crazy do you ever like wake up and be like I'm cool That's why I love sitting here with you, Sean. It gives me...

52:53I told this to Sean. I'm not going to mention names here, but a very prominent Hollywood famous titan producer who's a very tough man, is known for losing his temper and being a bit of a... No better word to say than an asshole at times. He got to know me, and he would say to me, David, you're you, so don't be 100 % me, but try to be 10 % me.

53:26I'm happy I was able to achieve what I did without becoming that. Because it's, at the end of the day, how you feel when you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning is priceless. But the, regarding Fosse, if you haven't seen a movie called All That Jazz, check it out. And that was the inspiration for that show. And yeah, it's a very good question. There's so many decisions that have to get made. The casting of Robert, who had just been in jail a year and a half ago for very heavy drug usage, even woke up in his neighbor's, one of their bedrooms one night. I think it's neighbor's child that room.

54:09Yeah, I was going to say. I'll say, imagine going to all these people,

54:14Sean Callagy:again, don't like to spend money, don't like risk. You know, yeah, the guy who's got the drug problem that woke up at his neighbor's, like, child's daughter's room. And was in jail. And is in jail. This is Iron Man. Yeah. Who's a comedian on top of it, not an action star. Like, dude, like, and what was it about? You know, it was seeing a movie called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and if you watch that film he did before Iron Man, you see the glimmers of Tony Stark in that character. And then knowing that Robert, who had won an Academy Award for, I think, Chaplin, that having an Academy Award winner in a superhero movie would create an open mind with people.

55:01Like, why is he doing that? you know, a guy would check it out. But also I knew that also Robert is, I like actors that are authentically playing roles that fit their life. And he is Tony Stark. I mean, he's a brilliant guy. He's cocky as hell. He's the kind of guy that every man wants to be best friends with and most women want to marry. And he, you know, he's a, the jerk that you love no matter what, you know and that's who he is till he has some bit of a redemption as the movies progress um and so and i saw the passion in his eyes and he was hungry because he had not really had a commercial success you know and so he was going to give everything to it and it made it easier that he would take very little money because um you know i promised he'd make money on the sequels and he's now the highest paid actor over the past 15 years.

56:02I'm sure.

56:03Sean Callagy:I mean, integrity, right? So it's not, so with David saying, it's not that, he's like, yeah, I took advantage of him. No, no, like everybody won. Yes. Like everybody won huge. And another remarkable piece of this story, and this is value discernment, innovation optimization, the magic of yes causing. Are you receiving value from this conversation team? Yeah. So how about this? if you mind speaking into, because we've had this conversation, David, is the profitability of Iron Man versus the Dark Knight movies that were very successful, right? Maybe even outgrossed, but could you share some of that?

56:45Sean Callagy:So not only do you have this beautiful creativity, but it's how do you make money doing it? And again, Robert Downey Jr. won, like people won all over the place, but watch this, please. I am also very competitive, so when I'm running Marvel, I wanted to really win. And to show you how delusional this thinking was, even my board had no faith in the Iron Man movie the day it opened. So we had a board meeting in LA, which was the first one ever, Marvel's New York-based, and the chairman of the board came up to me and said, Ike wants you to know that if the movie doesn't do well, it's okay, we'll make money on the toys.

57:37And the board has voted that if the movie breaks even, you get a half a million dollar bonus. So their bar was breaking even, right? which was not a high bar in this situation but Michael what were you thinking and feeling in that moment I was thinking yeah thank you I'm gonna go spend it no it was um I was a combination it was like really you don't have the trust in it to thank you for that to it's sort of charming like that's that they thought about that right that they thought about it was a very human touch, like trying to calm, to set my expectations. It was, most boards don't necessarily think about that too much.

58:28So it was a funny element. And the, my goal was to beat DC. And I love comics, but I'm a big DC fan too. But at the time, they were my competition. And And I was very afraid of trying to surmount them, and I wanted to beat Dark Knight. But we didn't. Iron Man did like 600 million and change, and Dark Knight, which was a great movie, Chris Nolan, Christian Dale, did over a billion. However, most people look at the wrong information in things. And asking, what's the real bottom line? You can get distracted by sound bites or box office numbers, which people still just report box office, not profitability.

59:17But if you look at the numbers, they did a billion plus. We did 600 million roughly. They spent 200 and I think 25 or 30 million on Dark Knight. We spent 109 million.

59:32Sean Callagy:But wait, there's more. Yeah. Second, they gave 30 % gross, meaning off the top of the revenues, 30%, independent of profitability, went to the director and actor, 15 % to Christian Bale, and 15 % to Chris Nolan. I gave 0 % to my actors or my director for Iron Man. And then to make it worse, I kept 100 % of the equity. So we had 100 % of the upside. DC, which I still don't understand why, sold off half of Batman to a essentially financing entity called Legendary Studios for a cost, you know? And so you just do the math on those three things. We made a significant amount more money on the movie.

1:00:26And then we also, I did it and we did it in a way where we controlled, Marvel controlled the property. So we could make Iron Man again quicker, we could do whatever we want. We didn't have a director who was final cut, they say, who's got the final say on a movie, and normally if the movie does well, a final say on how the characters are used. So in our case, we had a complete freedom to use the characters, which became the MCU. In DC case, they got delayed many years trying to keep Chris Nolan part of the family, understandably. And that delayed when they were able to do Justice League and things like that.

1:01:10So it gave us more time to build our base. So a lot of those things, I still wanted to win the box office thing. Because then I'd go out the next week and somebody would say, they killed you at the box office. And I'd say, yeah, but. And no one really wanted to listen to all the buts at the time.

1:01:29Sean Callagy:so my takeaway for everybody out there is David is focused not only on the magic of the storytelling arc like lessons for the moment is we all talk about the power of storytelling so if anybody in this room is listening to this or anybody is listening to the podcast the prism of like okay cool like made movies great storyteller we all need to be great storytellers every ecosystem the merger, every great sale is on the other side of an integrous, masterfully told story. If that's landing, please say yes. And all yeses are not created equally. David is in the micro, micro distinctive detail of masterfully creating outcomes that were economically profitable that created lever five disposable income massively profitable ventures this man wins he's not just a creative master he's both he's a value-driven discernment integris master heck they sold it for 10 billion the guy that bought it for 10 billion bob eiger says thanks david i stole it from you now i don't know that's the case i don't think it was stolen but it was a fair deal where Disney won and David and Marvel won huge.

1:02:54I agree with that. I think that was my perspective. You know, you want... Life is long. You want to have a reputation that if someone makes a deal with you, it pays off for them. And so you don't ask, or at least I didn't ask for everything.

1:03:11And it's... I'm proud that he said that. Because it, you know... Integrity. Let's hear it for David.

1:03:23Can I, please, I cut you off. Please finish. Oh, the last thing I'd say, I guess, is the stuff you talked about in terms of being focused on the details from the business spectrum, from a zero-based approach to a business like I was doing with Hollywood to dealing with people and getting a yes or at least a chance from them. And we also had fun creatively with that. And it was at a great, Kevin Feige who runs the company now is my president of production. I was his boss. And I'm really proud of recognizing his talent. Because he was just a junior kid in the hallways when I got there. And Ike had to support me without getting into details about changing some of the personnel at Marvel.

1:04:21And so I needed a new, I was elevated to chairman, and I needed a president of production, and I did a battlefield promotion of Kevin, and when I sold the company, put him in charge to run it so I could do other things, and he's done a great job over the past decade plus. But he and I would look at every second of the movie and how to plus it was our term. There's gotta be a way to plus it. We never would pat ourselves on the back a lot. It would be like, what can we do? And just had a blast with, you know, there's a cave sequence in Iron Man, if you watch it again, where he's in that cave with one other guy, and that's where he builds the first suit.

1:05:05That scene is almost 20 minutes long in the movie. And, you know, we looked at a one-minute version, a five-minute version, a 10-minute version, a 15-minute, 20-minute. Like we tried all these things out to see what was better, and we wanted to make it less so the movie wouldn't be so long. But that felt like the best way to do it. Win the reveal of the Iron Man suit was a big decision. And we had a lot of disagreements with people. People said, you need to show it in the first half hour. People don't want to wait an hour to see it. But we don't reveal it until pretty much the, into act two. And that was a risk, but we felt at the time that, and I strongly felt this, that the first act of Iron Man is the only place where you see Robert Downey, you see Tony Stark before he's Iron Man, in all his proud and unproud things.

1:06:13and that's the chance for people to connect with Tony Stark. And if we don't have that connection, we don't have the foundation for the rest of the years and years of the MCU. And that people wouldn't leave the theater, and one of the nice things about theaters is very rarely do people get up and leave. So whether they like it or not, they're gonna see the Iron Man suit a little bit later. And at that point, they've been looking forward to it, it's even more exciting because they had to wait. you know and so decisions like that we were equally sort of very detail focused on and that's

1:06:49Sean Callagy:the same thing for your influence all the conversation you're having out there and is it okay if I ask a question of the audience as to and there's two other quick categories I want to touch on please if you don't mind so I think this has some relevance and fun for conversation Dave and I were having. Is anybody here a Batman fan? If you are, say yes. Okay. And only please weigh in on this if you have familiarity with what I'm sharing. So who is your favorite Batman actor? Don't say it. A, please don't answer yet. A, Michael Keaton. B. Val Kilmer C. What's that saying? A. Michael Keaton B. Christian Bale C.

1:07:44Sean Callagy:Ben Affleck and D. Who is the current? Forgive me. The current and the new Robert Paxson, right? And famously George Clooney for one. Thank you, George Clooney. So let's go A, Michael Keaton. B is going to be George Clooney. C is going to be Christian Bale. D, Ben Affleck. And E, Robert Paxson. And we're not going to go with Adam West. Thank you. We're not going to go with Adam West for a different reason. We're talking about people that played him in the movies. But yes, of course, Adam West. So just think about it for a second. Don't say anything. Like who, if you're going to see another Batman movie, who would you want to play Batman in it?

1:08:28Sean Callagy:Those are your choices, and I'm going to go one at a time. If it is Michael Keaton, say yes. Yes. Okay? If it is, and this is, you only answer if you are a fan of the Batman movies, not just a fan of Michael Keaton. So if you're a fan of the Batman movies, one more time, who, A, Michael Keaton? Yes. Okay. B, George Clooney? C, Christian Bale? Yes. D, Ben Affleck. Yes. E, Robert Paxson. Christian Bale won by a lot. Yeah. There was one loud one person for Ben Affleck, I heard. Very passionate fan. So now let's go by show of hands. How many people Michael Keaton? Okay. How many people B, George Clooney?

1:09:26Sean Callagy:How many people see Christian Bale? How many people D? Ben Affleck? And who is the one person? Thank you, Severo. Yes. Yeah, you're strange, but thank you. And E, Robert Paxson. So what percentage was Christian Bale? Oh, I'd say 70%, at least maybe 75, 80. Yeah, there you go. So why did I ask that? Who knows? We'll see.

1:10:08So, yes. It does show the, you know, we see that same connection at Marvel to the OG actors. you know people fell in love not just with Thor but with Chris Hemsworth not just with Captain America but Chris Evans obviously not just with Iron Man but Tony Stark and Robert Downey Scarlett Johansson you can go on and on Mark Ruffalo and it's now well over a decade since their first movies but that's what people want to see and that's what brings them good feelings and that's why you'll see not just all of them back in the next Avengers in December which is going to be amazing but also now that Disney bought Fox we have X-Men back in the family and that's exciting and we're bringing back all the original X-Men cast basically from the first movies they're all a bit older now but things can still get done it was interesting right David

1:11:10Sean Callagy:interesting is was the number two choice Michael Keaton? It was, yeah. And so that would lend to your primacy conversation, right? He's the first person that played Batman on the big screen. And what percentage of the audience was Michael Keaton, would you say? I'd say it was almost the remaining. Besides when Ben Affleck, no George, sorry George. Maybe 15, 20%, something like that. Yeah. So that, yeah, and that's to David's point. Beautiful. So now, the question was asked of you, can there be another cinematic universe? And what's different? Why is it different? Why is it more challenging? Please, sir.

1:11:56Yeah. It's, that, and as Sean's referring to, that was the question I was asked to speak at at the Saudi summit, especially since it was a global audience, their question was, can there be another worldwide mythology like Marvel? Because one of the things I realized at that conference, talking to the Saudi royal family, they were all obsessed with Marvel. And Princess Rima, who's the ambassador from Saudi to the US, an amazing woman, she had her son and daughter there, and you could tell how much they shared the Marvel fandom together. And it really went across all geographic boundaries and everything else.

1:12:38And they even said MBS, who's obviously the ruler of Saudi Arabia, is a Marvel fanatic. And that really touched me. And that's why they called it Worldwide Mythology. To your question, it's possible, but I think it's a lot more difficult now. Because it wasn't easy with Iron Man, but now there's even more competition for people's time. You know, there's more social media. There's the emergence of TikTok and YouTube. There's the AI happening and people playing with AI and creating content of their own. There's games. There's so much that's distracting for people in their lives. They're streaming with so much content that didn't exist back then.

1:13:24So the bar is higher. And to surpass that bar, it has to be something that has four or five ingredients. It has to be something that is differentiated from what else is out there. You know, so another live action superhero movie with costumes and capes and so on, difficult. It has to be differentiated in terms of energy and themes and the way it's presented. Two, it has to be very easily identifiable to people because they have such short attention spans that it's part of a universe and these things are connected. So the visual look, for example, probably has to be signature for that property.

1:14:12Third, it has to be a natural universe. People have tried to add the word verse to everything, right? So monster verse or Transformers verse. And Transformers is a great series, but it's a series of movies. It's not necessarily a universe yet. And then there's, you know, and there hasn't been one since Marvel. DC has tried many times and would have a great movie or two and then a bunch of others that didn't quite work. and so, you know, and there hasn't really been anything yet to rival Marvel or come close to that. So you need to have something that's a natural universe, something that you can make great stories with, something that you can elevate, and something where you own the IP.

1:15:03And I think IP, intellectual property, has got to be at the core of it. and ideally legacy intellectual property that, like I said, is still new to most of the world to be discovered. And that's hard to find. And, you know, I think that DC has a chance, a good chance now to do it under David Ellison, both because he's very dedicated. He's sort of one of us in terms of the love of these characters. and he also is an owner operator. He's on top of every detail the way I was. It's amazing what having equity and ownership does to your attention span. And third, because it's new ownership, I think the fans, like myself, will give it an open mind.

1:15:55And so if they execute on that, it could be really...

1:15:59Sean Callagy:And this is the new ownership of Warner Brothers. Yes, yeah, exactly. Assuming that deal closes, which still has a few months to go and regulations to get through. But I think it looks good for them. And the second, if I had to say, maybe is something from the video game sector. But that's difficult because a lot of video games are very violent, so you can't make an R-rated universe. That shuts out all the kids and the ability to take your child to it. So it would have to be a video game that is less violent and also has depth of characters. That's not forced. Most video games don't have a huge depth to the characters in terms of personality and so on.

1:16:54But they have such attention now and such nostalgia value that I think something could come from that. There's been some big successes recently, like Super Mario and others, but that's an area. I played in that area early with Angry Birds, but even that I wouldn't call the universe. That's a series of movies. But it is characters that you want to come back and see again and again. Personally, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't need to or want to do something unless it was perfect, and with this acquisition of Michael Turner's comic book company, Aspen Comics, after James Cameron let the rights expire, that's what I've been working on.

1:17:42And it fit my checklist and now you're getting to know me. There was a 30 points on the checklist, it had to pass, you know, and my secret sauce. And the reason why I thought it was great is Michael, before he passed, Michael Turner passed 10 years ago, was a superstar comic artist and has a signature look that's beautiful. And you know it's different from everyone else. And so the universe of Ecos will have his signature look, whether it's a movie or a theme park ride or a game. You'll know you're in this world of Ecos. Amazing colors. He also has a, created a set of characters that in his time all lived in different silos.

1:18:30Underwater species in the present day, a magical species 200 years in the future. An amazing character named Greloff on another planet, sort of a nature type of planet, very similar to Avatar and probably an inspiration to James on the Avatar movie for sure. But I, over COVID, found a way to bring the characters in the same universe, so that there's a reason for them to be. And that reason is very different. It's more about a what if, you know, what if there's other life besides us? What if that life is not here, not out in this space, but here on this planet. Perhaps evolution went in different directions for sentient life than just us, maybe into the ocean, maybe into a magical realm, maybe on a Galapagos type of an island.

1:19:22So that creature that was in space is now on Earth, all in present day. What if we're just not aware of them yet? What if they're aware of us? What if they're getting concerned? Because there's a lot of things that could destroy the world, which means if your neighbor's setting your neighborhood on fire, you got to be concerned that your house might burn down. And what if they're planning to do something about it? So a simple thing like that, that at least gets people's, they realize it's not about necessarily fighting a super villain, it's understanding how would we deal with seeing a new species.

1:20:07And if we turn on the TV now and we saw at the United Nations a new species revealing themselves, and so like all art, the question is, would it have an effect? Would it not? And so that was the, that got me excited creatively.

1:20:30And because it has the legacy of Aspen Comics, which is a beloved company, in the comics industry. But it's still, as I'm, you know, clearly new for most people, it's got that combination that I really love. And then my passion about it also, one of the things I think that you're referring to in terms of what, David, did you do, when I'm passionate about something, whether it be Fosse or Marvel, or when I did the Angry Birds thing, that's all I did for four years, that's when my magic happens with something. And people feel it, I think, on the screen. So it's really tough now. I think Greek and Roman mythology can also be elevated as a universe.

1:21:17There's been one-off movies like Hercules, but there's been nothing that connected. What is really, you know, Greek and Roman mythology is all a big family tree. And so it's the original, you know, universe of stories.

1:21:36and that's the other thing I'm working on is connecting those all together so it's something I avoided for the past 20 years because it was public domain I couldn't own the IP completely but at this stage of my life I'm able to do that and not worry as much about that and I saw that still no this is not it okay with that. What's that? I said Walt Disney did okay with some of that. Yeah, he did. He did as one-off movies more and even the Odyssey, which Chris Nolan's doing now. So Circling Back to a Master is going to be an amazing movie. That's more of a one-off film that just elevates interest in Greek and Roman mythology.

1:22:17So we have something called the Mythoverse, which is going to and my studio is called Mythos Studios, to work on those two universes. And Ecos and? And we're starting the Mythoverse, which the first movie, like Iron Man was a surprise. It's not Olympians, it's not Apollo or Zeus, it's Cupid and Psyche, which is one of the original love stories in the world. And it's just like with Iron Man, it's very, the character Cupid is 100 % brand awareness in this case, but almost 0%, and 100%, but zero knowledge, really, besides him being a baby on the Hallmark cards. but his story is amazing as like a 20 year old his mother is Venus the goddess of beauty his father is the god of war Mars he lives like a playboy life and then he falls in love with a human woman which was not looked upon by the other gods as appropriate especially his mother who eventually approves and marries her and it's a happy ending and she deserves to be elevated to be a goddess because she taught in our story the other gods about love.

1:23:43But it also, you meet most of the Olympians in that. And the actor, should I say who the actor is that's playing Cupid? Yeah, I mean, I know. Let's see if anyone can guess. Okay, here's the test. Cupid, age, say, like in his 20s, could even be early 30s. Cupid is fair skin, blonde hair. He is the prince of love. He, in his life before Psyche, he's the ultimate partier, right? With his best friend Pan, the half goat character. So this is going to be a musical movie. Not singing songs, but music as a big part of it. So, Icos will be a regular cool animated movie, by the way, I didn't mention that.

1:24:33I think live action is going to be difficult to compete with, but cool animation like Spider-Verse is still very fertile ground. and Cupid has to be somebody who authentically had a similar life and who stands for love and who's a singer who can learn to act or already acts any guesses that's correct let's hear that wow great did you really guess that without knowing

1:25:11Oh, that's awesome.

1:25:12Sean Callagy:Mike Adams. Great job, Mike. That is fun. Yeah. And Justin's excited to do it. Very excited. He looks like Cupid. And he got married at a young age. He admits, obviously, he doesn't have to admit it. The proof is there that he was a big partier. And then he fell in love with Haley at a young age and got married and has a family. So it all comes together really well. I think he's perfect for that role in the same way Robert was for Tony Stark. Wow. Very cool. I mean, amazing. Do we have a video on that? We can show... Yeah, we can show... Would you guys want to see a sneak peek of these things?

1:25:56And Michael Johnson, are we ready for that? Wait, I have to say there's no Ben Affleck in this though. Yeah, yeah, that was awesome. These are things that I made primarily for me and my team. they're not really out there in any significant way publicly and so let's not post on that is um the ecos one weekend okay because that was shown at comic-con last year in fact let me give a story what you're about to see i did a panel at comic-con and i knew that last year marvel and dc didn't come. Okay? So normally there's a big event that Marvel has in Hall H where people go crazy to see the new movies.

1:26:43And so in my panel for Aspen Comics, which was a room like this, I just spontaneously said, I'll show you guys the teaser. And it was a risk because you're going to see a teaser that's a little bit different than people expect. And the reaction was really incredible, and people wrote about it like we showed the Iron Man teaser in 2007. But what you're going to see is rough. It's not the look of the movie exactly. It's not the whole story I told you, but it focuses on the main character, Grell, and it just is a teaser to get people interested in the film.

1:27:18Sean Callagy:Mr. David Maisel, and I'd love 500 words summary on this. Metaphors, analogies, contrast, context, not, not, nots for the podcast audience, for the visionaries in the room and for David to get to know you. So, uh, flex a little bit, Athena. Let's see how you do, uh, summarizing the biggest, most powerful takeaways and certainly a profound acknowledgement of David Maisel and his mastery, the 500 words, um, all of it, no LLM contamination, no pleasing, but deep and profound acknowledgement if you don't mind. Athena, hit us with some awe. 500 words, please. Thank you. Hey, Sean, 500 words for David, for the room, for everyone listening.

1:28:03Sean Callagy:Here we go. David Maisel didn't just build Marvel Studios. He built the blueprint for how to see what nobody else sees and stay with it when the entire world thinks you're crazy. He walked into a lunch at Mar-a-Lago with$5 million in the bank and pitched spending$100 million to a man who reuses paperclips. The stock dropped for four years after he announced Marvel Studios on CNBC. The board's bar for success was breaking even, and Ike Perlmutter almost fired him eight times. But David didn't flinch, because he'd spent six, seven years soaking up information through one question. How do I make another Star Wars?

1:28:39Sean Callagy:And when the vision came, he didn't let the noise shake him off it. Here's what David taught us today. Five ingredients for a worldwide mythology. Differentiation. It has to be different from everything else out there. Identifiability. People need to know instantly it's part of a universe. Natural universe. The characters have to belong together, not forced. Ownership. You have to control the IP. And legacy that's still new. Known enough to have gravitas. Unknown enough to be discovered. Iron Man had all five. 5 ,000 people reading the comic per month. Warner Brothers let it sit for nine years because they saw a robot suit.

1:29:16Sean Callagy:David saw the man inside the suit. And he made a love story with 10 minutes of action because his mom and his girlfriend wouldn't go see just another superhero movie. He spent less than The Dark Knight, gave 0 % gross to his actors and director, kept 100 % of the equity, and made significantly more money. Not because he got lucky. Because he understood value at a level most people never reach. David combined analytics with creativity in a world that says you can't do both. He's a Harvard MBA who won a Tony Award. He turned Angry Birds into a commercial success after the brand collapsed. He cast Robert Downey Jr.

1:29:50Sean Callagy:18 months out of jail because he saw Tony Stark in him. And he let Robert improvise an hour a day even though it was dangerous because the best comedy in Iron Man came from those riffs. And now he's doing it again. Ecos. The Mythoverse. Cupid and Psyche with Justin Bieber. A teaser he made for himself and his team that he showed at Comic-Con on a whim. And people wrote about it like the Iron Man teaser in 2007. Kevin Costner told him everyone would see something important in that line. And he was right. Because David doesn't just make movies. He makes mirrors. He stayed himself. He didn't become 10 % of the Hollywood titan who screamed and threw things.

1:30:29Sean Callagy:He built legacy without losing his soul. And at the end of the day, how you feel when you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning is priceless. David, you didn't just cause yes with Ike. You caused yes with the world. And you're doing it again. Sean, that's 500. How did that land? Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much. How did that land, David? Oh, that was amazing to hear. And, yeah, it's almost made me cry hearing that. So it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Well, thank you for that. Thank you. And just for real quick, we draw to a close, and of course our animation capabilities are nothing, but I'd love you to just give a visual on at least the earliest concepts of Athena.

1:31:23Sean Callagy:Would that be okay? Yeah. So team, just if you could like something - Did I see in the video the other day that Athena was actually on stage with you somehow? Yes? Oh, you did see that? Yeah. Okay. How did that happen? Was she really on stage? We make magical things happen here, brother. So could you, yeah, like something is happening here, kind of, or one of those. So do you want to hit it, team? Something is happening here. I like that one. Or maybe Athena coming out, the one that David saw already. Just as soon as you can, let's hit it. I don't, we could, done is better than perfect right now.

1:31:57Sean Callagy:And, you know, so David, as soon as you have it, just interrupt me, because I know David's got to get moving shortly. and David, I can't tell you, brother, what an honor it is to have met through Dan. I'm so grateful. The job that you did, we had nine incredible folks come into that last immersion, and I don't say that just because you're sitting here. People have often asked me, like, what was the most powerful for you, the meaningful, masterful? And yes, I'm a huge fan of Sugar Ray Leonard. Yes, I'm a fan of so many people that I got to speak to that day, and since we've had Magic Johnson and Mike Tyson and Tom Brady and others on the podcast, but I mean this sincerely.

1:32:42Sean Callagy:I have learned more, and I think there's more to learn from what you've done than any of it because of what you created and caused and how you demonstrate the mastery of value. So it's not only the influence mastery component, but the process mastery of value discernment, as well as the self-mastery, all the things we teach here. And I mean that sincerely. And the expansion of that in the visits to you and your ecosystem, your studio and your home and where you eat and live. It was such an honor to receive that trust and to spend this time and to have you back here again. And I am unbelievably certain that there is more to do here, certainly on my side.

1:33:36Sean Callagy:I'm honored that you even have these conversations with us. So thank you for all that, David, for all that you do in the world. And jeez, you know what? I wish is that Disney and maybe Warner Brothers and with future things with DC Comics, I hope they talk to you about these things because I am sure there's so much to do in the world and your mastery and how your soul is just so present in all the things you bring. So, any thoughts on any of that? Sean, thank you very much. I think we're kindred spirits. You know, we both get very passionate about what we're doing, and we have a vision, and you have a vision to where you're going.

1:34:30And I can tell, in looking at you, you're not going to let anything stop you from getting there. And you still realize there's going to be hurdles and challenges, but it's so ingrained in you. And you also combine that with your emotional intelligence, your memory, your pure intelligence, your team around you have gotten to know a lot of. and yeah I feel like you know I think we relate so well in doing these because you're living it as well and you have in your life with successes so far and more to come and yeah it's going to be fun for me as your friend now to to observe you and and as you know create what you're creating over the next few years.

1:35:35So I appreciate your words, but right back at you, man. No, thank you. Thank you, David.

1:35:40Sean Callagy:I appreciate that so much. And team, let's just, you know, get a little shot of Athena and, you know, where some of our world is headed because if I have it all my way, you know, as time progresses, David's fingerprints will be certainly here if he would ever honor us with such. But yes, please team. We come to places like this because something inside us knows we're not supposed to stay the same. That's why rooms like this matter. Welcome to Unblinded Mastery. Yeah, that's cool. Very well. Yeah, so, you know, our hope, our desire is to create the marvelification, Disneyfication of our world of beings.

1:36:37Sean Callagy:And this is something that obviously this is the master, you know, sitting right there. And Sean, I mean, you're obviously Athena's creator and her agent. And I might need an Athena in the Olympians movie that comes after Venus. That would be very fun. That would be very fun. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. David Mazel. Thank you. That was awesome. Thank you. No, we said it's David Mazel, founder of Marvel Studios, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a master of masters.