About

By 2005, Marvel Entertainment had begun planning to produce its own films independently and distribute them through Paramount Pictures. Previously, Marvel had co-produced several superhero films with Columbia Pictures, New Line Cinema and others, including a seven-year development deal with 20th Century Fox. Marvel made relatively little profit from its licensing deals with other studios and wanted to get more money out of its films while maintaining artistic control of the projects and distribution. Avi Arad, head of Marvel’s film division, was pleased with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films at Sony Pictures, but was less pleased with others. As a result, Arad decided to form Marvel Studios, Hollywood’s first major independent film studio since DreamWorks.

Kevin Feige, Arad’s second-in-command,realized that unlike Spider-Man and the X-Men, whose film rights were licensed to Sony and Fox, respectively, Marvel still owned the rights to the core members of the Avengers. Feige, a self-described “fanboy”, envisioned creating a shared universe, just as creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had done with their comic books in the early 1960s. To raise capital, the studio secured funding from a seven-year, $525 million revolving credit facility with Merrill Lynch. Marvel’s plan was to release individual films for their main characters and then merge them in a crossover film. Arad, who doubted the strategy yet insisted that it was his reputation that helped secure the initial financing, resigned the following year.