PHOTO /Carol Tedesco
Shirrel Rhoades introduces ‘Marvel Renaissance’at the Tropic
French Fanboys’ movie about Marvel features Shirrel Rhoades
KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER
“Marvel Renaissance: How the Superheroes Took Over Hollywood,” is a French-made documentary about the ever-growing popularity of movies based on Marvel Comics’ superheroes. It had its United States premier at the Tropic Cinema in Key West on Thursday, Aug.14.
Key West secured this honor due to the fact one of the former Marvel executives interviewed in the documentary is none other than Key Wester Shirrel Rhoades.
Rhoades introduced the film to the audience with a brief but fascinating report on his three-year history as the publisher of Marvel Comics. He succeeded the legendary Stan Lee, “creator” of most of the more famous Marvel superheroes.
Besides being president of the Key West Art and Historical Society (for the second time around), Rhoades is a well-known and widely read movie reviewer. He and attorney Al Kelly also own a successful e-book publishing company, Absolutely Amazing eBooks.
“Marvel Renaissance” tells the remarkable story how Marvel, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December of 1996, arose from the ashes to be sold to the Disney Company for a whopping $4 billion on Aug. 31, 2009.
Rhoades has spent a long time in the publishing business, having worked for, among other magazines, Harper’s, Reader’s Digest and the Saturday Evening Post. He also served as publisher of Marvel Comics from 1996 to 1999.
While at Marvel, Rhoades was tasked with approving, on Marvel’s behalf, the final cut of the movie “Men in Black.” Hence, he addressed the packed audience at the Tropic suitably attired in a black suit over a black shirt accented by a black tie adorned with a red Spiderman motif.
Rhoades recounted how he was hired just when Marvel had entered a period of great internal turmoil. Here’s how Rhoades described his hiring to the Key West crowd, which listened to the tale with a mix of amazement and amusement:
“Back in 1996 I was called in by the then president of Marvel Comics for a consulting assignment. He gave me a six-month contract to do a “white paper” on how the comic book company should be re-organized and said, ‘I expect you to tell me we need a publisher and if you’re smart you’ll tell me that this publisher should be you.’”
Shades of Bush II engaging Dick Cheney to advise him whom he should pick as his VP nominee and Cheney recommended himself…
“I accepted the assignment,” says Rhoades, “but two weeks later that president was gone and the new president said, ‘Forget about the white paper, I want to hire you as the publisher.’ But a few months later, that president was pushed aside and a third president then offered me a contract as publisher.”
However, “Just as we were about to sign the contract, the corporate lawyer came running into his office shouting, ‘You can’t sign that! I just checked Stan Lee’s contract and it specifies that he has the title of publisher for life.’ So they hired me as Acting Publisher.”
Then, a few months later, Stan called them up and said, “The boy’s doing the job, give him the title.” And that’s how Shirrel became Publisher of Marvel Comics.
During his nearly three years at Marvel, he reported to five presidents, under four ownerships.
Nevertheless he describes his almost three years as Marvel publisher as both the best job he’s ever had and the worst.
“It was the best because of a myriad of fascinating people and celebrities that I had the opportunity to meet and work with,” he recounted. At the pre-opening Hollywood party for “Men in Black,” he partied with its stars, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Of course, being the publisher of Marvel was any fanboy’s dream come true. And Rhoades was a fanboy from an early age. He told the audience at the Tropic that he kept his growing supply of comic books in the bathroom as a kid, spending hours locked in there to his mother’s distress.
It was the bitter fight for control of the company between two corporate take-over artists that made it his worst job. He says he he often felt he was being pulled in two. In 1989, the parent company of Marvel Comics was purchased by a company owned by Ronald Perlman, who had recently completed a successful hostile take-over of Revlon. In 1991, Perlman took the company public. Sales were soaring in the comic-book boom of the early 1990s. Then a slump hit in the mid-1990s which exacerbated the problems caused by Perelman’s over-expansion. That generated a fight for control of the company by a man even more famed than Perlman for hostile take-overs of public companies: Carl Icahn, the icon of hostile take-over artists.
It was Perelman who put Marvel into Chapter 11 in December 1996. Rhoades and others viewed the Chapter 11 filing as a stratagem in Perelman’s fight for control of Marvel from Icahn. But Perelman was hoisted by his own petard. Under pressure from Marvel bondholders, led by Icahn early on, the bankruptcy court removed Perelman and replaced him with Icahn.
In the end neither Perlman nor Icahn won. The fight was won by two Israeli immigrants, Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad, owners of a company named Toy Biz who ingeniously out-maneuvered the lawyers. They ultimately won control of Marvel in late 1998 through the approval by a federal judge of a bankruptcy reorganization they sponsored.
The first theatrically released film based on Marvel Superheroes, produced under the leadership of Perlmutter and Arad, was “X-Men” in 2000, which did quite well at the box office, earning about $238 million in adjusted gross.
One of the former Marvel executives interviewed in “Marvel Renaissance” recalls how most Marvel executives nervously awaited the results of the opening weekend for Spiderman I two years later, fearing that if it flopped there’d be no more superhero movies.
But their fears proved unwarranted. Spiderman was a huge success. In the end, its adjusted gross was $566 million, more than twice that of “X-Men.”
The next two Spiderman movies did almost as well in adjusted gross (Spiderman 2 in 2004 at $490 million and Spiderman 3 in 2007 at $399 million).
The success of the original Spiderman movies led not only to the Disney purchase of Marvel but to a plethora of “Marvel movies,” including the highly successful “Ironman” series starring Robert Downey Jr. Rhoades admits that Marvel almost made a mistake in considering Nicholas Cage to star as “Iron Man.” Critics attribute the success of the “Iron Man” movies in large part to the skill and charisma of Downey.
The highest grossing Marvel movie to date has been Marvel’s “The Avengers,” released in May of 2012 and generating $626 million in adjusted gross. Rhoades advises us that the sequel due to be released next year is likely to be an even bigger success.
After the screening at the Tropic, Rhoades answered several questions from the rapt audience that applauded the movie. He politely declined to answer one question: “Who is your favorite Marvel superhero?” But he did confess that he’s now consulting for Marvel’s rival, DC Comics. And he acknowledged that Perlmutter and Arid both reportedly had ties to Israeli intelligence, telling the audience that Ike Perlmutter “always carried a gun.”
More than anything, “Marvel Renaissance” is a financial thriller.
“We can never thank Shirrel enough,” say the movie’s makers.
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