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- [00:00]
Sean
Marvel had a massive dormant asset.
- [00:04]
David Maisel
I was given an assignment by Michael and I had no office yet. So I went and I saw a conference room, and there was three secretaries in the room. And I said, I need this room. I have a project for Michael Ovitz, and that's it. And they scurried out of the room. Those weren't secretaries. That was Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler.
- [00:25]
If I had to pick one thing that I'm proudest about, it was the.
- [00:29]
Sean
One and only David Maisel. Let's hear for David.
- [00:43]
And by the way, David is a real publicity whore.
- [00:50]
He has appeared everywhere. Or not. This is only the second time he's ever been on a podcast. The first was Tim Ferriss, who at times had the number one podcast in the world, and he did a speaking engagement for the South Korean government and now us. So this is Dan Fleischman Soares. Let's hear for David one more time. Thank you, David.
- [01:17]
Okay, so first, did I overly hype this, or is this actually you, sir?
- [01:24]
David Maisel
Now you got knee pumped about it.
- [01:29]
I need you to walk by my side all the time.
- [01:31]
Sean
That's the deal.
- [01:34]
So, Dave, thank you. Seriously, it is an honor and privilege, and I am so grateful for everybody who's coming to speak at this immersion. And it's one remarkable person after another. But in terms of what personally.
- [01:49]
I believe will create the most value is what lies in this conversation. And every speaker has massive value. And the reason is because everything we teach is what David not only lives, but is in a one in a billion level of mastery. And it's just the truth. So, you know, Dave and I had the blessing and privilege to spend a bunch of time together today. And speaking of these things. And so the first thing that I really want to bring forward is the fact that this is real and accurate. So would you guys be up for hearing how this all unfolded? The yeses David had a cause, the mindset of David. Would that be helpful for you? If yes, say yes. So, David, please wanna take it from the beginning of you were born. Just kidding. But, yeah. What drove you? You were a comic fan as a child. Your mom was gonna get rid of your comic books. At one time, Iron man was your favorite character. What would you like us to know of everything leading up to 2003 and how we get there, if you don't mind?
- [02:53]
David Maisel
Yeah, I think 2003 is a great place to start, Sean. And imagine not being a kid anymore. You're in your 30s, you've worked really hard and you've done well, but you still want to do a lot more. And.
- [03:12]
Prior to that time, I had a love for entertainment and movies and Marvel. And I also didn't have any money and had done well in school and knew I was creative but thought it would be more predictable to make an income using the rational business side of my mind. So I had spent many years, went to Harvard Business school and then McKinsey Boston Consulting Group. And then I quit those and went out and wrote a cold call letter to the most powerful man in Hollywood, a guy named Michael Ovitz, who had created the biggest talent agency, Creative Artists agency in the 80s. This was now 95 we're talking about when I wrote the letter. And I figured I needed to go out to Hollywood. I was in upstate New York, in Boston.
- [04:08]
To really learn the entertainment industry and live it. And no one better than Michael to be by his side. And I got very fortunate that I got an interview and he hired me. So from 95 to about 2000.
- [04:25]
Sean
And if I guess, David, if it's okay, I'm going to interrupt only in service of you in footnotes. So when was that? Warm or cold? What did David say? Cold. Cold, number one. And I don't mean cold like he was selling solar. I mean cold like he was speaking to the most powerful man in Hollywood. Did you hear that? Yes. So what happened? Do you think that he saw in your identity, in you, that caused him to say yes?
- [04:53]
David Maisel
That's a really good question. And I've thought about that. Because, number one, just to get the interview was a miracle with him. And then to get hired. And there's two things that became a learning for me from this when I look back at my career. One was the initiative.
- [05:11]
The worst that could happen is I didn't hear back from Ovitz. You know, this was back in the day of actual printing out your resume at Kinko's and sending a letter.
- [05:22]
So it's costing me a postage stamp to do this.
- [05:26]
And then you never know if the timing is right. It turns out he had just been hired by the owners of Universal Studios Matsushita, a Japanese company, to sell that company secretly. And as a good agent, he had sold the job and got himself the engagement. But he had no capability to do the work that was needed. In walks a Harvard MBA who's hungry, will do anything for a job and has a stellar resume. And I was there at the right time when Michael needed somebody. And then as we talked about earlier with Marvel, it was a Very low risk deal for him. Again, he said, what are you making at McKinsey? I'll match your salary, no contract, I can fire you at any time. And I said, thank you.
- [06:19]
And because this was a secret project, I wasn't employee 400, even though that's what it looked like out of 400 on the org chart, I had a secret with the head guy and that created a degree of trust. And I also. So you know why? The job. Right place at the right time. And that was about 90% of it and 10%.
- [06:49]
That he thought it would be great to have a Harvard MBA by his side when he talks to his clients like Tom Cruise or Warren Beatty, because this just makes those clients feel like they have a better team. I do remember saying to him.
- [07:03]
I'm not normally what I'd call cocky, especially on these types of things, but I told him I came across with a lot of confidence that I was going to help somebody in Hollywood and I'd love it to be him. So I said it in a nice way. But he told me later on that that confidence resonated with him and also brought in him some competitiveness that he didn't want to see me with one of his friends or enemies across the table. Next week.
- [07:37]
Sean
Integra scarcity. Let's put up tink back and forth. Integra scarcity. Congruence fully present. Right. So please.
- [07:44]
David Maisel
So exactly.
- [07:45]
Sean
So now it begins.
- [07:46]
David Maisel
So you know, this period before 2003 was an education period. That's how I think about it. Because I was now at a talent agency and my boss was the king. I could see everything that happened in that agency and that was the center of all the secrets and deals in Hollywood. So I had a very privileged ability to see the truth of what made money in Hollywood. I got to be by his side and see how deals were done. I had no street smarts at the time. I was very book smart, but no street smarts. And I got to see how he operated with people. I remember.
- [08:26]
My first day I was given an assignment by Michael and I had no office yet. So I went and I saw in a conference room and there was three secretaries in the room and I said, I need this room. I have a project for Michael Ovitz and that's it. And they scurried out of the room at about, you know, you talked about late nights, I think he called me into his office at 11pm and said, what do you got? And I showed him what I did and I didn't see an expression on his face. He just looked up and said.
- [09:01]
Well, before I get into what you did, do you realize what you did earlier today when you stormed into that office and kicked out those three people? Those weren't secretaries. That was Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler.
- [09:18]
Sean
Oh, my God.
- [09:23]
David Maisel
And they weren't very happy about how they were treated.
- [09:29]
And.
- [09:32]
He didn't use the word you were blind. But he insinuated that I was blind to seeing what was in front of me, that I needed to open my eyes. So I got my first of all, I thought I was going to be fired my first day, but I still remember that that was my first lesson. Boy, I have a lot to learn. It's not just delivering a report to him, which he liked. It was, how do I handle the people I see in the hallway? How do I handle the people that I don't know? And never underestimating the importance of relationships and reputation.
- [10:06]
You know, to the point of him once coaching me to say, make sure I say hi to the receptionist when I walk in in the morning. So I got very privileged to see how the town works in so many different ways. And then Michael Ovitz quit his job at the pinnacle of Hollywood and famously said yes to his best friend Michael Eisner, and became president of the Walt Disney Company. So next thing I know, in 96, I'm over at Disney. Michael brought me and two other people with him, and my basically dad is the president of the Walt Disney Company. And again, I have open access to how a studio works now, all the good and the bad. And they ask me what I like. I say, I like sports. And they said, oh, we just bought ABC and espn, so why don't you go to the Upper west side of New York, and there's a guy named Bob Iger who's the president of that division. And you can help Bob out. And so I actually was put into what's called strategic planning, corporate development at Disney, a very powerful group. My office was next to somebody you're going to see in two days, Kevin Mayer, and on the other side, Tom Staggs. Both of them almost became CEO of the Walt Disney Company. They were Eisner's guys. I was Ovitz's guys. So it was a nice little soap opera going on after every meeting. But I got to meet Bob Iger, who I eventually, as you guys all are aware, sold Marvel to over 10 years later. And Kevin Mayer was there as well.
- [11:36]
Sean
Emphasize. So 10 years later, David will sell Marvel to Bob Iger as Disney's CEO and Kevin Mayer helping and supporting and running the transaction, who will be here speaking on Friday. So.
- [11:54]
How completely insane is the power of. Yes, that's the story. This man's life. A cold letter. He worked at one of the top consulting companies in the country. And a couple years later, he's rolling with people that are running Hollywood, running Disney. And he'll later sell the company he creates from startup for 10 billion to Disney. Could you hear for David for a second.
- [12:29]
Please?
- [12:29]
David Maisel
David? And to that, Sean, I think just thinking about this in real time, I told you about my meeting with Bob Iger to sell in the company. We'll get to that later on. But one of the questions that the reason that meeting went so well is Bob remembered and trusted me and my integrity from the time that we worked together. I actually wrote some of Bob's presentation to the board of directors at Disney for him. So we got to know each other pretty intimately. And he knew that what I was saying about Marvel could be backed up. And I remember Bob in that secret meeting said, if I say yes to $50, will my board and will my team, Kevin Mayer and others think I made a good deal? And I said, bob, they'll think you got a steal. And he didn't take that as salesmanship. He took that as substance. And I think the reputation that I had back then really helped me facilitate a lot of those transactions. Then the rest of the time, before 2003, Ovitz eventually got famously fired from Disney by his best friend. And I was loyal and went with Michael in the next chapter of his life.
- [13:46]
He is and still is a legendary.
- [13:51]
And I was able to do a Broadway show here in New York and do my first creative endeavor. So I won the Tony for best musical for this show called Fosse. And I was able to get my creative confidence. So by, you know, by the time 2003 came.
- [14:06]
Sean
David, would you mind sharing? Because we had this. You brought this point so clearly home. David refused to accept the false framing of people. And there was a standard in Hollywood. And would you mind sharing that? Suits versus creative frame.
- [14:23]
David Maisel
Yeah, absolutely.
- [14:26]
I had a dilemma because as Sean is saying, I very much love the creative arts and I love the art of the business, too. And in Hollywood, there's a dichotomy. You're basically classified as a suit, the business guy, but you're not supposed to talk about creative or the creative guy, but you're not supposed to talk about business. That makes you less creative. And I think One of the keys that allowed me to have the vision for Marvel and make it happen was I love mixing those two things together. And I realized working in those years before the MCU and Marvel, that I had to choose and I didn't want to. And the only people that didn't have to choose were the bosses, the studio chairman. And there was only six of them. And they were in their jobs for decades. And it wasn't a meritocracy. It wasn't like a law firm or consulting firm where there's some degree of meritocracy. And so I really had a choice in 2003 to work my way up a studio and gamble to finance a movie completely that will let you have both business and creative. But I didn't have that kind of capital or to create my own studio. And as silly as it sounds, I thought, you know, I'll create my own studio and appoint myself chairman.
- [15:44]
And that started the thinking about what became Marvel. I should say I had another gig that's important. There's a guy named Ari Emanuel that a lot of you guys have now probably heard about. The inspiration for the Ari Gold character in Entourage. And now the CEO of William Morris Endeavor. And Ari was just starting Endeavor. And again, the power of relationships. A famous agent who Ari teamed up with thought Ari and I should meet. And I ended up working with Ari for two years as he founded Endeavor, which is now William Morris Endeavor. And so those relationships at both of the talent agencies and at Disney, all of that stuff was in my mind and the learnings in 2003 when I realized I need to figure out what I'm going to do. And I spent the weekend, now we're back in 2003, basically in my sweatpants, in the apartment I still live in.
- [16:47]
Thinking about what I'm going to do. And I put together the thoughts, business plan, creative thoughts of what the the MCU became, which was the idea from a business point of view to make a movie which has a degree of risk for every first movie that comes out, no matter who the star is or the ip. But to have, if that movie is successful, not just one or two or three sequels, but 100 sequels or quasi sequels. And then you have asymmetrical reward to risk. And that seemed like from all the analysis that I did, the smartest way to make a movie, you can make an R rated movie and hope it works. But there's normally you're limiting the audience. It has to be 17 and older. There's never probably sequels. So there's movies that are not necessarily as good a business investment as the idea of what became a universe. We didn't even have that word then. With that idea in my mind, I knew I needed to make all those quasi sequels. I needed a group of characters that you'd want to see two or three times a year. So I needed to have a universe of characters or a set of characters that are in each other's stories. And as a huge Marvel fan, you know that clearly an investor, by the way, at the time was my first choice. Now, Marvel wasn't the Marvel it is now. Marvel had been bankrupt three years earlier. It was only market cap was $100 million out of bankruptcy. It had licensed, as Sean said, Spider man to Sony and X Men to Fox. Both those movies had done well, but nobody wanted the other characters and Marvel.
- [18:42]
Sean
I'm sorry. So. And just for everybody's presence, that fair that that would have been the equivalent of DC Comics having licensed out Batman and Superman. Would that be a fair correlation to X Men and Spider man and then deciding they're going to launch their own DC studio without Batman and Superman? Is that fair or not fair?
- [19:06]
David Maisel
Yeah, it is fair. It's, you know, those were the prime jewels that were perceived by. By the audience. And I think, as with many businesses, people look at success and they extrapolate that that's the only thing that will be successful.
- [19:21]
With Marvel. Every the way movies are made, if you own intellectual property, a brand, nobody would ever finance their own movies. They would just license. And so a studio would pay for the film and have creative control and you might get a small piece of the profits.
- [19:41]
So, yeah, it was revolutionary to think that Marvel would finance its own movies. And the reason why that was important was if you didn't finance, if you licensed, each of the studios would have these characters in perpetuity. They never could be mixed together in, say, a movie like the Inventors. So self financing was required to make a universe. It also was beneficial because it gives you 100% of the profits. There's no way we'd get to 10 billion if we had licensed the movies. We'd been lucky to get to a 500 million market cap. And also by self financing, you have full creative control. So if you love the Marvel movies, a huge part of that was it's only been run by me and my protege Kevin Feige, over the past 20 years. And we never really had to listen to anyone else's opinions and studio notes. And so what you see is a large amount of love and Care and tender loving care. We like to put it into the films. All those benefits came out of that beginner's mind of thinking, hell no, let's make the movies ourselves.
- [20:49]
Sean
Yeah, unbelievable. So let's hear for that.
- [20:56]
So David Morville, I believe, went bankrupt. Right. And at some point it's purchased out of bankruptcy before 2003. And now how do you end up at Marvel in 2003 and what does that all look like from there? If you feel comfortable.
- [21:13]
David Maisel
The good News is in 2003 and that weekend I'm talking about, I got really excited about my idea. The bad news was I knew nobody at Marvel and I never had made a movie before.
- [21:27]
And so I thought about that for a few minutes.
- [21:32]
Sean
Like, no heroic, unique identity as filmmaker Zero.
- [21:36]
David Maisel
No.
- [21:37]
Sean
Yeah.
- [21:37]
David Maisel
At that time, even though I had done well with the Broadway show.
- [21:43]
Everyone in Hollywood would have thought that I was pure business, basically.
- [21:49]
And so I had to first meet somebody there. And there's also where the relationships come into play.
- [22:01]
Essentially just going out to the vast to my network of people. It turns out one of a lawyer that I previously had used was also representing one of the Marvel executives. And that led to my invitation to go to Mar A Lago to meet with the man who controlled 60% of Marvel, a man named Mike Perlmutter. And I was able to have my hour and a half lunch pitch to Ike, to use that word.
- [22:28]
And what was important about that meeting is I researched it and learned just from the information out there that Ike was very private, that he.
- [22:43]
Didn'T trust Hollywood necessarily for a good reason. There's a lot of games in Hollywood, a lot of crazy accounting things like that. And as an IP holder, you know, your legal department is your biggest department. And he also didn't like to spend money. And.
- [23:02]
So in that meeting with him, which you're right, you know, his close friend Donald Trump came by, who was about to launch the Apprentice at the time, and wanted to talk about Hollywood. So it was a very memorable meeting even without what's happened since.
- [23:20]
And I could tell that Ike was not interested in my pitch, that the idea of Marvel, who had $10 million in the bank making $150 million movie, would never happen. And so just like with Ovitz, I gave him an offer he couldn't refuse.
- [23:39]
You know, I said, give me just cash. I mean, a small amount of cash. Stock options at market. I only make money if you make money and you can fire me at any time. Just let me into the hen house. And that started the journey that brought the MCU to life.
- [23:57]
Sean
Irresistible offer integris transparency to relevant truth, adding more value than to be received and claiming he knew how to make it work. And obviously he did. So he caused. Yes. That he had. David had no on paper rights to be causing that. Yes. So when you think about, well, I don't do that. Well, he didn't do that. But it's all the same thing. He was masterful at causing. Yes. He was masterful at producing sequencing of yeses. And he understood and mastered. David Maisel did how to create value. And that's what the man did. And he took that in as difficult, challenging, scrutinizing a person he was working with imaginable. And he's sitting with that guy that makes Donald Trump look easy. Is that a fair statement?
- [24:55]
David Maisel
Yeah, I think yes.
- [24:58]
Sean
Yeah.
- [25:00]
David Maisel
I've had the privilege of working with some very tough, smart, complicated men.
- [25:07]
With Michael Ovitz and Ari Manuel and Ike Perlmutter, all who've done extremely well. And I think working with gentlemen like that.
- [25:20]
It'S about getting trust, like you said, making it feel like it might be a lopsided equation in their favor and having them see your dedication and passion. Everyone responds to that. And I think they could see that in my eyes. Sitting at that table in Mar a Lago. I wasn't looking around at what was going on there at that country club. I was missile locked on this vision for the mcu. And it stayed that way for the next eight years.
- [25:49]
Sean
If you could feel that certainty emanating from David, say yes. Yeah, awesome. So, David, it becomes a yes. Anything else you want to share with that or then please take us from.
- [26:01]
David Maisel
2003 forward and again, guide me, because each one of these things has a lot of, obviously, details that it can go into.
- [26:12]
Sean
So a masterful. If you find David to be a masterful communicator, sales.
- [26:22]
Obviously, that's how he did all this. Please.
- [26:27]
David Maisel
I remember vividly that.
- [26:30]
Ike drove me to the airport to leave Florida. At the time, I still wasn't sure if I was going to be hired. I got the offer to join.
- [26:42]
That was the end of 2003.
- [26:47]
Between then and the launch of Ironman, basically five and a half years later, a large amount of hurdles had to get done. I was telling Sean earlier today, if I had to pick, one thing that I'm proudest about, it was the vision over that weekend of what could be and looking at an industry in Hollywood and realizing it wasn't an efficient market. Not all the opportunities were tapped. There was Chance for entrepreneurship, there was chance for innovation. And there's not a lot of innovation in Hollywood. You know, Steve Jobs famously innovated in the animation space with Pixar. Reed Hastings did an amazing innovation coming up with streaming and Netflix. And what we did at Marvel was really the third innovation of the past 25, 30 years that changed the industry and created significant, significant value.
- [27:48]
All of those things were done by outsiders, Steve and Reed Hastings. And even though I'm in Hollywood, I live in Hollywood. My social network's in Hollywood. I'm definitely in and out of it. I look at it from a different angle. And everything I did with Marvel, for example, was independent movies. So this is somewhat of a zero sum game with the box office.
- [28:12]
And I think that part, looking at something fresh and learning about it and really thinking about what could be.
- [28:20]
Is the part that got me the most excited. And then there was a huge amount of execution that had to happen, including meeting Ike, including getting hired. That led up to the opening night of Ironman. So the hurdles that had to go through sequentially, where one, I had to convince the board I was now there. I was made president of what was called a studio, but it wasn't really a studio at the time. It was just giving notes on scripts to license movies. But I realized what Ike really wanted me to do was get a higher percentage of the next licensed movie. So if I could get it from 3% to 5%, that'd be a win. And so I had to do things to gain the trust of the board. But I also continue to talk about this opportunity with film to the point of being kicked out of board meetings and being told, don't ever talk about movies again, your 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.
- [29:29]
Things that have zero risk are normally too good to be true or they don't exist at all.
- [29:35]
Sean
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 it with these amazing folks. Who are you in relationship to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Like the design of this entire world and landscape? Was this just like, hey, we should do a something, or how involved were you in the macro construct of this?
- [30:09]
David Maisel
Yeah, I'd say it would be impossible to be more involved because I gave birth to the idea that weekend. The idea of 100. It's a fine cinematic universe by one movie and 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. So most people have learned about Marvel through the movies, not through the comics, but. 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 finance studio. And then the fun part was, okay, what is our first movie going to be? So all the characters there, like Sean mentioned, many we didn't have the rights to. And 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.
- [31:59]
But my ex boss from 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 him sell Universal to Edgar Brockman Jr. I think CA got a huge fee of which Ron Meyer got a big check for being a partner. So he was very happy with me. So 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, if I have the money to make it, I'll finance it and I'll give you 10%.
- [32:41]
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.
- [32:54]
And he said, almost like Bob said in retrospect, Bob said, will Kevin Mayer and my board like this deal? Ron said, Will General Electric like 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.
- [33:13]
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. To distribute every movie with Hulk in it through Universal because you want to control the marketing. You want to control that. 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. And you have defined terms. And Universal got the rights to distribute capital H, Hulk movies, a defined term in perpetuity.
- [34:00]
Sean
Wow.
- [34:00]
David Maisel
But then I defined Hulk movies as Hulk as the star or in the title. So when you see Avengers and you see Hulk and the Avengers movie and you see Disney distributing it, it's all because of that one sentence in the contract.
- [34:14]
Sean
Well, it's here for David.
- [34:22]
David Maisel
And that sentence, when we sold the company to Disney, probably increased the value in a nine figure amount to what they paid.
- [34:30]
Sean
Wow.
- [34:32]
David Maisel
Where we didn't have that language. Paramount for five movies. Disney actually bought Paramount out for almost $100 million per movie 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, you now. I had to raise 525 million. Whole nother story that actually turned out to be risk free. There was a bond bubble in 2004. Thank God for that. Thank God that the bankers wanted to go to premieres and to clubs in Hollywood.
- [35:06]
Sean
Amazing.
- [35:09]
David Maisel
And I knew some of the doormen and the club owners, so that helped.
- [35:15]
Sean
And what year is the state? 2004. You're raising half a million dollars.
- [35:18]
David Maisel
I left 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 non recourse to Marvel. No cash collateral.
- [35:39]
Sean
Oh my God.
- [35:41]
David Maisel
Marvel was able to get. We got five.
- [35:43]
Sean
Do you think this dude can go from hello to yes?
- [35:48]
And it always worked, right? So this is not like he was making deals that were bad for people. This worked. Please.
- [35:55]
David Maisel
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.
- [36:13]
So even if it went bad.
- [36:17]
They didn't have the paper, and most of it was insured by ambac. So a long story there, but there is ways to really facilitate the yeses from each of the people along the line.
- [36:29]
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. We have 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 our stock went down for five years after I announced the studio. People really didn't believe in this.
- [37:03]
Sean
So.
- [37:03]
David Maisel
So when I say.
- [37:06]
Warner Brothers let the rights for Iron man go, they were in an environment where that wasn't a crazy thing. They just saw it as a robot movie. 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.
- [37:39]
We were leaning towards the second because.
- [37:43]
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. The 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. We were leading with Iron Man. So we had to make sure Iron Man. 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.
- [38:41]
Sean
Unbelievable. If you're like, this is really happening, 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 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 fair enough there.
- [39:41]
David Maisel
If there wasn't the bond bubble and we were required to put up.
- [39:47]
$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.
- [40:01]
If Robert Downey had a huge hit the year before Iron man, maybe he'd be less hungry to do Iron man and, and cut a good deal with me. So, you know, life is interesting. But I realized 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 me.
- [40:45]
I'll remember a funny time where on this financing.
- [40:51]
The bank who did the financing.
- [40:56]
I won't mention them now, but they should be proud. It was a really good bank. Second mention, it was Merrill Lynch. It's public.
- [41:03]
We had negotiated this and they retraded the deal. And I was at their office and they said, we'll fund 2/3 of the movie, not 100% of the movie. You 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.
- [41:34]
I 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.
- [41:46]
And 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.
- [42:09]
And that allowed us to get that done. So part of it is just not taking no for an answer, but.
- [42:17]
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 would go public with this retrade, which wasn't good for their reputation on Wall Street. And to their benefit, they compromised, and we ended up making a win win together.
- [42:43]
Take it wherever you'd like to go.
- [42:45]
Sean
Robert Downey. Why him? The resistance, the timing, what was happening, Please.
- [42:51]
David Maisel
So Robert Downey was part of the equation is once we decided to do the individual movies, then I was like, oh, shit. Like, 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 $5 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.
- [43:24]
Interested in seeing this movie.
- [43:27]
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's 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. These 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.
- [44:49]
And he also appeals to.
- [44:56]
Everybody, including women, strongly. You know, I told Sean, I think after getting to know him, my mother would have chosen for her son. First Robert, second Dan Fleischman, and the third myself. So at least I was in the top three.
- [45:17]
Because Robert tried to pick her up. Dan was more respectful.
- [45:24]
And I was just David. So 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. Now, why 103? Well.
- [46:13]
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 I. In Hollywood, you write a script and then you cost out the script. I said, you know, no.
- [46:37]
I think 103 million. That's. We can make the best 103 million movie we can have. And then that way, if the film does 2/3 of X Men or two thirds of Spider man, we break even and we make money on the toys. And that last sentence, again, I'm. 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 that level, which meant I only had money for 10 minutes of action, which meant I needed to have an hour and 50 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. Yeah, 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.
- [47:38]
Sean
Yeah, how just like are you present to the precise value driven mastery of every microdistinction. 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. He'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. He's working through them. Because all that integris 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. It 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 in 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 at 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. As the person after a recent scandal, which I'm sure David has 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 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?
- [50:31]
David Maisel
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. For me, it was a little bit more instinct at the time.
- [50:48]
Sean
But Dave made. That's exactly why we do this. 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. And 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, unique identity into that truth, pain, and caused agreement. Of course, when 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 versus your hand out from your hand, they say, well, will the board like it? Are we sure? Okay. And these are icons, legends. And everybody is. 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. Am 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 that they'd say yes, and he decided he didn't want to be pushy. He was never pushy. He was pulling. 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? Your thoughts?
- [53:30]
David Maisel
100%. And really trying to understand, like you said, their concerns and proactively lead with those concerns. I got better at this as I got more experienced, 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 into Sea 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. That deal went to Universal in an old Ron Perlman deal years earlier.
- [54:20]
Fox has the rights to all these other characters like Silver Surfer, Deadpool and X Men, you know, not minor characters.
- [54:29]
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 4 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, right? 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 decade later and bring us back X Men. Thank God he did for our smartphone fans. And 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 in for that first meeting. And a year later he did an interview and said he had put that on his nightstand and with his wife, they'd look at a couple 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, you know, would have hired him if he was just doing a payday. That's the question.
- [56:02]
Sean
I.
- [56:05]
David Maisel
You know, 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, 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, helped me convince the board once they saw his talent and also his dedication.
- [56:35]
Sean
And you getting how much David did. So he created the concepts, he caused the yeses, he handled financing. Like all dude, did anybody else work at Marvel? Okay, so I mean it's.
- [56:49]
David Maisel
Did you clean the.
- [56:50]
Sean
I have to say and make the pizza?
- [56:52]
David Maisel
You know, 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 I think we all have our constraints that we could look at one way or the other. And you're a living example of that. And that inspires me.
- [57:16]
With 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.
- [57:31]
Other elements of what we were doing. You know, it always turned out to be a positive thing. I didn't have money to go hire people for the studio.
- [57:44]
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 Ironman. 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. So 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 gone 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.
- [58:35]
Sean
That's awesome. Let's hear for.
- [58:38]
Team do we have. Thank you. Thank you Team do we have the clip right around the time the video from the Ironman red carpet.
- [58:49]
David Maisel
I can give a quick context to this. What you're about to See, I didn't know existed until a couple years ago. Somebody dug it up. And to show you how much people didn't believe in this thing, this is the. 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.
- [59:14]
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 release, where the projection was. We were going to bomb and do $30 million, and 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 going to 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 going to see a much younger me sort of delusionally talking about the future of Marvel.
- [60:04]
Sean
We got that team.
- [60:06]
Yeah. Let's hit it.
- [60:09]
David Maisel
David Emezel.
- [60:10]
Sean
And you're with Paramount?
- [60:11]
David Maisel
No, I'm the chairman of Marvel Studios. Yes.
- [60:15]
Sean
Specifically, this is the first one out.
- [60:17]
David Maisel
Of the gate for you guys. It is.
- [60:19]
Sean
How do you feel?
- [60:21]
David Maisel
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 Iron man brand is just beyond our wildest dreams. The process, I know some of the. Some of your team had film experience, of course, but a lot of these.
- [60:46]
Sean
Guys over at Marvel Entertainment, you know.
- [60:48]
David Maisel
They'Ve been married with other films. First time, your process, how was that working with. With it? Well, you know, we put together a team. 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 the Incredible Hulk for the summer. And so we're just extremely excited for Marvel to move and make its own movies. And for the first one to get this kind of excitement. Enthusiasm is exactly why we created our own studio.
- [61:20]
Sean
What are the future plans?
- [61:23]
David Maisel
More of the same. We're developing a whole bunch of movies in addition to the ones that summer. Iron man and Hulk. We're developing Captain America, we're doing, developing Thor, we're developing Ant man, we're developing the Avengers. We're going to keep bringing the Marvel universe in, hopefully with the same tender loving care that we did with Iron man, since people seem to reacting so well to that and keep bringing it to our fans and bringing it to the world. Okay, well, 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 iron suit tonight. Oh, geez, 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.
- [62:00]
Sean
It's here for Dave and lays off.
- [62:03]
So, David, 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?
- [62:16]
David Maisel
Yeah, that was the first time actually that I ever had announced that we're making an Avengers movie or Captain America, Thor. So it, you know, we're a public company, so you know, you're supposed to be a little bit more coordinated on those things. But I was excited.
- [62:33]
Yeah. I mean, do you guys see why.
- [62:34]
Sean
I love this man already?
- [62:37]
David Maisel
I mean, to be honest, at a premiere, it's primarily your friends, your family, and so it's a very friendly, friendly crowd. Like you never go to a premiere and say you don't like the movie. Right. So it's basically the ultimate excitement and boost.
- [62:53]
But yeah, the, the idea at the time, like, to show you how bad this was. The, my board, the day of Ironman 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, they said, david, listen, we know the movie is 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, we'll make the money on the toys. So that was the confidence they had. A couple hours before it was released.
- [63:42]
I was like, at the time I felt pretty confident I'd get over that hurdle. And I was like, thanks guys, I'll take that.
- [63:49]
Sean
And what did Iron man end up doing?
- [63:52]
David Maisel
So again, the projection was like 35 million. And we end up doing 108 million for the weekend. In the weekend, yeah.
- [64:00]
Sean
Wow. Let's hear for that. That's crazy.
- [64:07]
David Maisel
And to put that in context, this year, Superman did 125 million for its opening weekend, but that was $2,025 versus $2,008. 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 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 billionaire in LA and a great person and businessman. And 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.
- [65:31]
Sean
Let's hear from him.
- [65:32]
David Maisel
That's so fucking amazing.
- [65:34]
Sean
That is amazing.
- [65:37]
So do we have team? Do we have Kali? Would you be cool with. We talked about Kali a little bit. The Act I agent to ask a question or two. Is Kali ready there? 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 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. What part of this story fills you with the most pride or excitement?
- [66:18]
David Maisel
Right now we use the word joy.
- [66:23]
And by the way, that question from AI was.
- [66:28]
Very.
- [66:31]
Nuanced and very touched me. It really did. Which is rare because honestly, like, at the end of the day.
- [66:41]
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. Like Sean said.
- [67:00]
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. But 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 watched the movies during COVID together.
- [67:23]
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, you know, people that we never would have that bond before. I was telling Sean, when I was caretaker, my mother and she was in the hospital, the nurses and the orderlies, you know, 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.
- [67:56]
So she was a win, win for everybody. I think that I pinch myself every day still, you know, that all these things came together.
- [68:05]
I'm still the biggest Marvel fan, and I know how rare having this level of success is.
- [68:12]
You know, it's, 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. It was my physical athletic ability and my training and my getting up at four in the morning and my working hard.
- [68:51]
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 pass passions to do this, but also just realize how fortunate I was to be there at the right time and, and, or one of these dominoes might not have happened. So joy is an interesting question, but I get so much joy from that and, and seeing this reaction from people and, and seeing people smile and understanding, you know, that, that there was heart and authenticity besides something that they might have enjoyed or fallen in love with. On their own.
- [69:39]
Sean
Let's hear for that.
- [69:44]
And Callie.
- [69:47]
David Maisel
And also I enjoy beating the other movies at the box office.
- [69:51]
Sean
Yes. And Callie, any final acknowledgement from you of David Maisel 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.
- [70:10]
David, 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 is 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. What would you most want the next generation of creators and dreamers to remember? Yeah, let's pause Callie. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, Cal. It's here for Callie, by the way. Right. And please.
- [71:04]
David Maisel
Yeah.
- [71:04]
Sean
What would you want these folks to be taking away, David. And final. Final from you.
- [71:10]
David Maisel
I said I need you by my side all the time. I think I need Callie by my side all the time.
- [71:13]
Sean
Yes, let's go with that. Let's go create that universe. Yes.
- [71:20]
David Maisel
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.
- [71:34]
And if you have goals, business and, or creative.
- [71:41]
And you know, to.
- [71:44]
As you can tell from the stories that we told here today that 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 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. And 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 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.
- [72:56]
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. So 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.
- [73:36]
Sean
Let's hear that too.
- [73:41]
Thank you. And David, so just curious and of course, looking for only authenticity, which is all that you're capable of. Callie, the acti agent, the acknowledgment that's not scripted, obviously we prepared nothing for Callie with you coming in. I'm just curious. You see a lot out there with what are you thinking or present to around that, if anything?
- [74:07]
David Maisel
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.
- [74:17]
So I follow that world pretty closely. I guess what impresses me here with her questions is her question could have been about anything. It could have been about any element of the story. She asked the question that actually meant the most to me.
- [74:40]
And 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 to Sean, 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. And I was very surprised about that.
- [75:09]
Sean
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 move deeper into your heart even and even soul touched and just your tonality, vocal qualities shifted to an even more deep heart place. Did I feel that correctly?
- [75:31]
David Maisel
No, you're right. And as you could tell from telling the story, I think 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. As Dan, who is 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.
- [76:03]
And what people can miss sometimes when you're that way is the part that Callie identified. So when you drill deep on the financing and the non recourse or the board mechanics, and it can sound very business and hard and mechanical, but 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, heard all that stuff we were talking about and figured out this is what drives the guy. And that was really, really amazing.
- [77:00]
Sean
Thank.
- [77:01]
David Maisel
Well done.
- [77:01]
Sean
Thank you. Thank you for that.
- [77:06]
And so as we draw to a conclusion, Dan Fleischmann, 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 was 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. He was in the room with me and a few people on the team the entire time. And 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 bulleting of Walt Disney. It's an incredible inspiration to David as well. Walt Disney created a new space which is remarkable. And 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 the studio on a relatively shoestring budget of $103 million of Batman costing 250 million and with a not Frontline character and caused this massive series of entrepreneurial impossible yes after. Yes after, yes. Leading to not an 8, not a 9, not a 10. 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. And what he's creating sits in the space of empathetic superheroic 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 we ever speak. You have profoundly affected my life. You profoundly affected lives in this room. And every time I ever feel exhausted or feel like quitting, I will think of what you did. And taking full time five years from 2003-8 to get to Iron man first happening and the creation of the MCU and everything happened before it. I mean it. You are a new hero, inspiration and teacher to me. And I thank you brother for being here today.
- [80:05]
David Maisel
Thank you, Sean. Thank you so much. I feel very fortunate.
- [80:10]
Sean
Thank you. One more time, let's hear from Mr. David Nazell.
- [80:19]
David Maisel
Great job, brother.
- [80:20]
Sean
Thank you.