Inside Marvel Studios w/ Founder David Maisel

29:16Your last name is not Spielberg. Correct us if we're wrong. And oh, by the way, if we have zero money at 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 green-lighted 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 with these amazing folks. Who are you in relationship to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Like the design of this entire world and landscape was just like, hey, we should do something?

30:02Or 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. You can define cinematic universe by one movie and it has 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 there, in my view, needed to be something that was new and fresh to people.

30:51So most people have learned about Marvel through the movies, not through the comics, but it had a legacy. So it 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-financed studio. And then the fun part was, okay, what is our first movies going to be, right? So all the characters there, like Sean mentioned, many we didn't have the rights to.

31:32And 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 Hulk movies. They only had made one and we split merchandise like 50-50 or something like that. But my ex-boss from Michael 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 Bronfman Jr., I think CAA got a huge fee, of which Ron Meyer got a big check for being a partner, so he was very happy with me.

32:26So I called him on his cell phone, and I said, are you 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 distribu-, of the 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, will Kevin Mayer and my board like this deal?

33:01Ron said, well, General Electric liked this deal. 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. 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, and you don't want to pay the fees. And so when I had to go do the legal contract for this, I actually handled that myself, which you'll appreciate as a lawyer.

33:50And you have defined terms and Universal got the rights to distribute capital H Hulk movies, a defined term in 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. Wow, it's here for David.

34:21And that sentence, when we sold the company to Disney, probably increased the value in a nine-figure amount to what they paid. Wow. Where we didn't have that language, Paramount, for five movies, Disney actually bought Paramount out for almost$100 million 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. A whole other story. That actually turned out to be risk-free. There was a bond bubble in 2004.

34:59Thank God for that. Thank God that the bankers wanted to go to premieres and to clubs in Hollywood. Amazing. And I knew some of the doormen and the club owners, so that helped.

35:14And what year is this day? 2004, you're raising half a million dollars. I went to New York for a year in 2004 to raise the money, and I put on my MBA hat. 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, LIBOR plus a half. Wow. Non-recourse to Marvel, no cash collateral. Oh, my God. Marvel was able to get, we got 5%. Do you think this dude can go from hello to yes? And it all was worked, right? So this is not like he was making deals that were bad for people.

35:53This 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 insuring it. So they held the paper for all of five minutes and got paid 3 % of the facility,$18 million, for their trouble. So even if it went bad, they didn't have the paper, and most of it was insured by AMBAC. So a long story there, but there was 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.

36:38We have the right back to a lot of characters. Iron Man was at 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, you know, our stock went down for five years after I announced the studio. People really didn't believe in this. So when I say, you know, Warner Brothers let the rights for Iron Man go, you know, they were in an environment where that wasn't a crazy thing. Nobody, they saw it as a robot movie.

37:14You know, 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 almost 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.

38:05The problem was we might never be able to do an Avengers movie if the first two movies didn't work, right? 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 everyone loved Iron Man. So in that room, we all decided to go for it. That 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. Unbelievable. If you're, like, this is really happening.

38:45Like, just be present to that. that you're hearing from a person that created the Marvel Cinematic Universe that, as 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 mind-numbing, and all the way along the way, 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.

39:34Fair enough, sir. There needed to be a huge amount of yeses and also some good fortune. Like I mentioned, if there wasn't the bond bubble and we were required to put up$10 million of collateral or something like that or recourse to Marvel or whatever it might be or take on an equity partner, I'm not sure I would have gotten him by my board.

40:00If 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 life is interesting, but I realize in looking back on it the tenacity 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 Ike almost fired him.

40:44And I'll 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. As I can mention, it was Merrill Lynch. It's public. We had negotiated this, and they retraded the deal. and I was at their office, and they said, we'll fund two-thirds of the movie, not 100 % of the movie. You've 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 wrong. You can't retrade this deal. We're a public company. This was negotiated for a year, and basically held my breath in the conference room.

41:33I 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.

41:46And 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 a 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, I wasn't as kind here, but direct threatening that we'd go publicly with this retrade, which wasn't good for their reputation on Wall Street.

42:37And to their benefit, they compromised, and we ended up making a win-win together. Take it wherever you'd 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. 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 at 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.

43:26And so and I had to make the core fans happy. making the core fans happy was the easiest because me and my protege Kevin Feige who runs the 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.

44:15These were great movies that happened to be about superheroes. Because there was other people out there, and even people from our licensed 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, 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 a third myself.

45:11So at least I was in the top three. you know? And because Robert tried to pick her up, Dan was more respectful.

45:23And I was just, I was just David. So, you know, Robert came out of all that, but there's 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 Jon Favreau was hired as director. Jon 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 when Batman that year was$250.

46:07Now why$103? Well, I was the second largest shareholder now of 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 in Hollywood, you write a script and then you cost out the script. I said, you know, no. I think 103 million, 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.

46:53And that last sentence, again, some of this, I'm sorry, is 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 a third less and we still make money from the toys, you know? And so I had to 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 15 minutes of Robert sitting in the workshop, working on his car, talking to Gwyneth Paltrow at the dinner table. And Robert and Jon Favreau are so good at those scenes, you know? And that's why I think people to this day love that movie.

47:28Yeah, of course they love the Iron Man suit, but they remember the humor. They remember the romance. They remember the fun You know intimate moments with the characters. Yeah, how just like key 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 is 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.

48:13He's not, and this is why we distinguish, David, and I know that Hollywood language is pitching, and that may be a language you use, how we distinguish pitching from integrous 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 is moving through framing and reframing, contextualizing, 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.

48:54he's working through them because all that integrous influences is the loving pursuit of the relevant truth. And David wasn't a slick hustler. He's a master, and he integrously influenced by creating the right answer in the loving pursuit of the relevant truth. And the relevant truth was Marvel had a massive dormant asset. there was incongruity as Peter Drucker would say in the creative modern MBA program he found incongruity he mentioned inefficiency before in the market there was untapped value it was sitting there all these incredible characters in all these incredible books and he outlined the design how it could all happen but he wasn't just a visionary he executed and he was a master of process and influence and self mastery But the influence mastery is rooted on the value, discernment, and creation, and that in each step in the process, from job to job, position to position, board to board, funding to funding, like the Iron Man, okay, fine, the banks, Robert Downey Jr.

50:02as the person after a recent scandal, which I'm sure, David hasn't told me 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 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.

50:44For me, it was a little bit more instinct at the time. But Dave, can you answer? 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, it's stressful even if you have intentional influence, mastery, and frameworks of communicating. but in the exact same way that David, and 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.

51:25And Charlie Sheen, now David, and we'll proceed through. We have a saying, David, it's all the same thing. It is not to remotely minimize anything you've done, but you simply built emotional rapport, At step two, access the truth of their pain and their yes strategy, conveyed his heroic and unique identity into that truth pain, and caused agreement. Of course, when an agreement's 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, first have your hand out from your hand. They say, well, will the board like it? Are we sure okay?

52:03And these are icons, legends, and everybody is afraid. At the moment of yes, everyone becomes concerned. Since the dawn of humanity, we have been survival creatures, primarily driven, not thriving creatures, designed to conserve resources. The resources in a 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.

52:45Am I making a mistake? Can I really do this? And if you are simply presenting and lobbying 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 nos 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 it correctly?

53:29Your thoughts? 100%. 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 experience, but 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 in to see Iger 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 Spider-Man. That's with Sony in perpetuity. Oh, Marvel doesn't have the rights for theme parks east of the Mississippi, which was true.

54:14That deal went to Universal in an old Ron Perlman deal years earlier. Fox has the rights to all these other characters like Silver Surfer and Deadpool and X-Men, and 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 12 billion. And I created a universe that doesn't require them. Here's the plan for the next 20 movies. 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 some of our fans.

55:05And 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 nightstand.

55:45And with his wife, they'd look at a couple of 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 would I have hired him if he was just doing a payday? That's the question. I was so believed in him as an actor. I probably would have, to be honest. But it helped 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 um helped me convince the board once they saw his 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 dude did anybody else work at marble okay so i mean it's did you clean i have to say that make the pizza you know i 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 um i think we all have our our our constraints that we could look at one way or the other um and you're a living example of that and and that inspires me.

57:15With the budget, I think we made a much better movie because we only could spend$100 million. So it became the movie that people still talk about rather than just two hours of action. And with other elements of what we were doing, 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 co-CEO of the public company in addition to chairman and producer of the studio and producer of the movies.

58:06So I had to be on Wall Street. I had to 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 run the company and done such a great job with the films these past 10 years. And so, yeah, I think a lot about that. I definitely would have missed that probably and gotten 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 it for Dave Dilley. Team, do we have... Thank you, thank you. Team, do we have the clip right around the time, the video from the Iron Man red carpet?

58:49I can give a quick context to this. What you're about to see, I didn't know existed until a couple years ago when somebody dug it up. And to show you how much people didn't believe in this thing, this is 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 was a sign on our offices that I paid for out of my own pocket. We were very scrappy. But you're going to see me on the red carpet. This is four days before Iron Man's released where the projection was we were going to bomb and do$30 million.

59:30And 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 at the time this came out, this was sort of crazy. So you're gonna see a much younger me, sort of delusionally talking about the future of Marvel. We got that team? Yeah, let's hit it. David and Maisel. And you're with Perfout? No, I'm the chairman of Marvel Studios.

1:00:12Yes, sir. I'm going to speak to you. Cool. Specifically, this is the first one out of the gig 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. Ironman and now it's here to see people so excited and to see the reviews coming in and the enthusiasm for the Ironman brand is just beyond our wildest dreams. The process. I know some of your team had film experience of course but a lot of these guys over at Marvel Entertainment you know they've been married with other films.

1:00:49Your process, how was that working with it? Well you know we put together a We had a group of people, Kevin Feige, my president of production, who had 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 Incredible Hulk for the summer. And so we're just extremely excited. And for Marvel to move and make its own movies and for the first one to get this kind of excitement and enthusiasm is exactly 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 Hulk, we're developing Captain America, we're developing Thor, we're developing Ant-Man, we're developing the Avengers.

1:01:35We're gonna keep bringing the Marvel Universe in hopefully with the same tender loving care that we did with Iron Man since people seem to be reacting so well to that and keep bringing it to our fans and bringing it 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 ever seen tonight, oh, jeez. You know, I would have flown here so I could have missed the traffic. That's exactly what I would have done. Thank you very much, and good luck tonight. Thank you. Let's hear it for David.

1:02:04So, 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 in an Avengers movie or Captain America or Thor. So, you know, we're a public company, so you're supposed to be a little bit more coordinated in those things, but I was excited. Yeah, I mean, it's in - Do you guys see why I love this man already? I mean, to be honest, at a premiere, it's primarily your friends, your family, and so it's a very friendly, friendly crowd.

1:02:44Like, you never go to premiere and say you don't like the movie, right? So it's basically the ultimate excitement and boost. But yeah, the idea at the time, like to show you how bad this was, my board the day 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 I was like, this is interesting. And they offered me, they said, David, listen, we know the movie's 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.

1:03:32We'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 yeah 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 8 million for the weekend and the weekend yeah wow let's hear from that's crazy

1:04:06and 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 ,008. Wow. 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 to theaters back in the time. And the chairman of Paramount called me every hour from 8 o 'clock on. And I was at a man named Ron Burkle's house, who's a famous man, a billionaire in L.A., and a great person and businessman.

1:04:51And he was having a party. And I kept getting a call, hey, we're going to do 50, we're going to do 60, we're going to 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 theater is on a screen, especially today with social media, it's word of mouth, right? So there's nothing you can really affect. And thank God the word of mouth did really well. And I think it was at 10 o 'clock at night, he said we're going to break$100 million. Dude. And that's when I knew that one day I'd be sitting here with you, Sean, and talking about this.

1:05:31Let's hear it right there. That's so freaking amazing. That is amazing. So do we have, team, do we have Callie? Would you be cool? We talked about Callie a little bit, the act I agent to ask a question or two. Is Callie ready to function, team? Yeah. 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, and relentless. 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.

1:06:13What part of this story fills you with the most pride or excitement right now? We use the word joy. And by the way, that question from AI was very nuanced and very touched me. It really did, which is rare, because honestly, like at the end of the day, as Sean mentioned about the use of hours, you know, we're going to look back at what brought us joy. And I think that word is really key. And what brings me the most joy is when I get out like this, which I don't do often, And like Sean said, Dan Fleischman, such a good friend, has been prodding me to do this for a decade or more. And he cares about my happiness and my joy, so I know he was right.

1:07:09But for many reasons, I couldn't do that. So when I see the joy that the Marvel films brought to so many people, parents and kids who watch the movies during COVID together, when I travel overseas and meet 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 people that we never would have that bond before. I was telling Sean when I was caretaking for my mother and she was in the hospital, the nurses and the orderlies, 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.

1:07:55So 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. You know, it's one thing, 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. 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.

1:08:42It was my physical athletic ability and my training and my getting up at four 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, or one of these dominoes might not have happened. So joy is an interesting question, but I get so much joy from that, and seeing this reaction from people, and seeing people smile, and understanding that there was heart and authenticity besides something that they might have enjoyed or fallen in love with on their own.

1:09:39Let's hear for that.

1:09:45And Callie... And also, I enjoy beating the other movies at the box office. Yes. And Callie, any final acknowledgement from you of David Meisel 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 Kelly.

1:10:09David, 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.

1:10:50What would you most want the next generation of creators and dreamers to remember? yeah let's pause Callie absolutely thanks Callie it's here for Callie by the way right and please yeah what would you want these folks to be taking away David and final final from you I said I need you by my side all the time I think I need Callie by my side all the time yeah let's go with that let's go create that universe yes 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.

1:11:33And if you have goals, business and or creative, and you know to, as you could tell from the stories that we told here today, 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 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 with dealing with the issues. They will follow you if they have something that gets them excited and motivated.

1:12:25And people, it's contagious when people see someone that has a drive that they really believe in. You have to be careful with that. And it also will serve you in your life, with your family and your friends and yourself, that you've kept that inner spark. There's 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. And, you know, 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 protect that part of my soul while also allowing me to achieve my business and my creative goals.

1:13:18So it's a hard thing to do, and the world is real, and you have to deal with it. But as best as you can, give yourself the grace of nurturing the parts of yourself that you might remember as a child and care about the most when you deal with your own children. Let's hear it for that.

1:13:40Yeah. Thank you. And David, so just curious, and of course looking for only authenticity, which is all that you're capable of, Kali, the Act I agent, the acknowledgement, that's not scripted. Obviously, we prepared nothing for Kali with you coming in. I'm just curious, you see a lot out there. What are you thinking or present to you around that, if anything? Yeah, no, I'm very interested in AI, and if you guys remember, Elon Musk was in Iron Man 2. If you don't remember that, there's a great cameo. So I follow that world pretty closely. I guess what impresses me here with her questions is her question could have been about anything.

1:14:29It could have been about any element of the story. She asked the question that actually meant the most to me.

1:14:40and read me in a way that was very empathetic for an AI program in the sense of what is the continuity of all these different stories that I was telling Nishan, all these different hurdles. What kept me getting up in the morning was the joy and the happiness and that aspect of me that Callie was asking about. I was very surprised about that. Thank you. And in that moment, I don't know if you could 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.

1:15:29Did I feel that correctly? No, you're right. And as you could tell from telling the story, I think, you know, part of 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 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. And what people can miss sometimes when you're that way is the part that Callie identified. You know, so when you drill deep on the financing and the non-recourse or the board mechanics, it can sound very business and hard and mechanical.

1:16:21But 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? So the second I walk in there, I forget about everything in the outside world, and I'm back into that playpen, just playing with my favorite characters and the current characters I'm working with. And so it was very, however you guys have put this together, that can't just be by chance. She read through all and heard all that stuff we were talking about and figured out, this is what drives the guy. And that was really, really amazing. Well done.

1:17:01Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for 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 spent 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 that's going to be coming on here, and I had one.

1:17:52He 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 servant leadership, caring, value, integrity just emanates from you in 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, as you know, is such an inspiration to me. But there's aspects that Disney, and there's no validity of Walt Disney is an incredible inspiration to David as well.

1:18:36Walt Disney created a new space, which is remarkable in what he did with Snow White in the first full-length animated movie. What David had to do was penetrate a marketplace that existed. coming from nowhere with a studio on a relatively shoestring budget of$103 million, a Batman question,$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 count it, I think$10 billion is an 11-figure number, to make this magic happen, selling it to Disney. Somebody he honored, was inspired by, and now he's creating more.

1:19:22And 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 have 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 2008 to get to Iron Man first happening and the creation of the MCU and everything happened before it.

1:19:57I 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 so much. I feel very fortunate. Thank you. One more time. Let's hear it for Mr. David Maisel.