Marvel Comics has a totally great idea to make its own movies, and all they had to do to get financing was kill the golden goose. I'm sorry, what?The financial model seems unusually favorable. Because most of the financing raised by Merrill Lynch (the $465 million revolving credit facility) is insured by Ambac Assurance, Marvel is not liable to repay its senior creditors if the movies tank. The Ambac deal uses the comic characters as collateral and thus requires no capital outlay by Marvel.Putting timeless characters in hock to try and jump on the (probably crested) wave of superhero films. That's Harvard biz school forethought at work.
Look, I have the decimated 1980s allowance savings to vouch for how bad Marvel's track record is in forecasting these kinds of industry trends. The company went public when people thought you could sell $40 polybagged issues of Spider-Man #1 new. It was a stupid, stupid time, and Marvel bought the hype hook, line and adamantium-laced sinker. I remember their stock quickly going the way of the sinker.
And now it's deja vu. In the Times article, some capital managers and film industry experts are skeptical of the new endeavour for reasons way over your head. But I speak as an expert on a) popular culture failures of the 90s and b) the rat%#@&ing delivered upon young consumers who believed new comics could actually be collectibles.
Left to its own devices, Marvel were the guys who could turn a certified mambajamba like Nick Fury (above) into, I kid you not, Hasselhoff.
Yes, they did quite well recently with the help of Avi Arad (when they allowed a few inspired dorkmonster directors to interpret their work), but he is now out:
Mr. Arad left Marvel last year after a power struggle with his former deputy in which he tried to have Mr. Maisel ousted, according to two executives knowledgeable about the tension. One of those executives said that Mr. Arad had disagreed with Mr. Maisel over budget cuts to the new Marvel movies and the production timetable, which Mr. Arad considered too rushed.If this is a reference to X3, and it seems like it is has to be, then my bet is that Cap is as good as gone. And I was looking forward to Iron Man.
