Inhumans movie would had been released today.

Why do the Avengers fear this man?
He's the reclusive and frugal billionaire behind the most successful film franchise of the past decade. But who is Marvel chief Isaac 'Ike' Perlmutter?
By Telegraph Reporters7:00AM BST 29 Apr 2015
Isaac ‘Ike’ Perlmutter, CEO of Marvel Entertainment, is the perfect billionaire. He’s a self-made man who saves paperclips from the wastepaper basket. He’s a Hollywood bigshot who’d rather be playing tennis in Palm Springs. He’s a generous philanthropist who holds a permit for a concealed weapon.

And he’s at the helm of the biggest entertainment franchise in the world – Marvel, which incorporates Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, most recently represented by Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron – but has never been interviewed and rarely photographed.

Ike Perlmutter was born in the British Mandate of Palestine in December 1942. Having served in the Israeli Army, he’s thought to have fought in the Six-Day War in June 1967, but such information is hard to verify, given Perlmutter’s dedication to maintaining his privacy.

In the late Sixties, when he was 24 years old, Perlmutter emigrated to the US with only $250 to his name. He would wait outside Jewish cemeteries in Brooklyn and offer to recite the mourner's kaddish (a prayer for the dead) for a fee. That business didn't make him a billionaire, but it was an early sign of his entrepreneurial nous.

Perlmutter eventually found his way into the world of toys, where he proved to be a sharp operator. In later years, stories have circulated of Perlmutter's overriding concern for the bottom line. "If there was some used paper or a memo lying around," said his long-time business partner Avi Arad in a 2009 interview with the Financial Times, "he would rip it into eight pieces and he would have a new memo pad."

According to one report, for a long time the Marvel headquarters had only one bathroom per gender, leading to insufferably long lines come lunctime.

Or consider his attitude to the Hollywood premiere of Iron Man in April 2008. Iron Man was the first movie to be financed by Marvel Studios, the film production arm of Marvel Entertainment, and there was a lot riding on it. The character had been shunted from studio to studio for almost 20 years as Marvel brokered licensing deals with Universal, 20th Century Fox and New Line. Writers and directors - among them Quentin Tarantino and Joss Whedon - had been mooted, but the film seemed destined to languish in development hell.

In 2008, Iron Man – which would go on to make $585 million at the global box office – was far from a dead cert.

So anxious was Perlmutter about the vast expense of the film - whose production budget was $140 million, a figure that must have been matched by the costs of marketing it around the world - that he argued that they should only serve crisps at the premiere.

Perlmutter was there at the premiere, paying a rare visit to Los Angeles from the home he shares with his wife, Laura, in Palm Beach, Florida (the couple also lives in New York City). But no one recognised him, because at the time he was wearing a wig and moustache.

In fact the reclusive CEO, whose net worth is estimated at $3.9 billion by Forbes, has managed to avoid being having his photograph taken for three decades. There is one picture, taken in 1985, which shows a handsome, unsmiling man leaning on a desk. It's also a point of pride for Perlmutter that he's never given an interview.

Clearly he has little time for journalists. Sparse catering at an Avengers event led ravenous hacks to pillage the hospitality suite of The Five-Year Engagement, which was screening nearby. (Perlmutter is nonetheless an exceedingly generous philanthtopist, having given tens of millions to cancer reasearch in recent years.)

Perlmutter is known for the tough contracts he negotiates with actors who enter the Marvel universe. An anonymous source who worked with the studio told the Hollywood Reporter that actors were handed "ridiculous deals". "They want you to do mashups, mixing and matching the universes," he said. "If you're character A in franchise one, they not only want the right to put you in sequels but to say, 'Now you'll appear in a glorified cameo in franchise two.' "

Marvel cleverly hires directors untried or long neglected by Hollywood, paying them little for their first film then upping the fee for a sequel. Joe and Anthony Russo recently told the Wall Street Journal that they made more money directing TV shows such as Community and Happy Endings than they were paid for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And Joss Whedon revealed that his web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog gave him a bigger payday than his work on The Avengers. (He's said to have been well compensated for the sequel, Age of Ultron.)

Perlmutter's approach seems to have worked. The worldwide cumulative gross of the films that comprise the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which is populated by The Avengers, Thor, Captain America, the Guardians of the Galaxy, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man) is more than $7 billion.

That's not to say that Perlmutter is unbreakable. For the first Iron Man film he paid Terrence Howard, who played Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, more than Robert Downey Jr, the star of the show. (Downey Jr's pay has since skyrocketed; for The Avengers he was paid $50 million. "They're so p-----," said Downey Jr in an interview with American GQ. "I'm what's known as 'a strategic cost.'")

Howard was replaced with Don Cheadle for the subsequent Iron Man sequels, and it was alleged by one of Perlmutter's former colleagues that he had advanced the opinion that no one would be able to tell the difference because both actors are black. (Marvel issued a statement in response highlighting the company's record on diversity.)

In the vast tranche of Sony emails dumped online by Wikileaks, we get a few shadowy glimpses of Perlmutter, mostly in connection with Spider-Man, a Marvel title that had been leased out by the company since 1999. Various Sony apparatchiks ask his advice on marketing and promoting the films, and he’s often on then-CEO Amy Pascal’s “to call” list. What’s clear is that even at the age of 72, Perlmutter is as hands-on as ever.

Kevin Feige And Marvel Studios Break Free Of Marvel And Will Now Report Directly To Disney

You may recall that frugal Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter very nearly fired Robert Downey Jr. instead of paying him to appear in Captain America: Civil War, and now Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has had enough! Hit the jump for details on this major shake-up...
Josh Wilding | 8/31/2015
Filed Under: "Avengers" Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Since the release of Iron Man in 2008, Marvel Studios has operated under Marvel Entertainment CEO Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter. However, after what The Hollywood Reporter's sources describe as "several years of frustration," Kevin Feige will now report directly to Disney boss Alan Horn. This is no rumour either, as a Disney spokesperson confirmed the behind the scenes shift in a statement earlier today. "Marvel Studios is taking the next logical step in its integration with The Walt Disney Studios, joining Pixar and Lucasfilm in centralizing many of its film-related functions in Burbank, with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and co-president Louis D’Esposito continuing to lead the Marvel Studios team reporting to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn."

Tales of just how frugal Perlmutter is are legendary, and as the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets bigger and bigger, it could be that Feige has finally had enough of those kinds of restrictions. It was Perlmutter who reportedly deicded to replace Terrence Howard when he demanded a pay increase because he believed no one would notice them replacing one black actor with another, and he very nearly screwed up Captain America: Civil War when he fought against the prospect of altering Robert Downey Jr.'s contract to increase his presence in the MCU moving forwards. Perlmutter will still oversee Marvel Television, as well as the comic book and animation divisions.

The trade adds: "One insider says Feige has earned the opportunity to break free from Perlmutter, who is not only controlling, but also obsessed with thrift. "Everybody knows Ike is difficult," says one source close to the company. "This has been a long time coming. Kevin has grown his entire career under Ike and now it just makes sense." What do you guys think?