Nelson Peltz, the Founding Partner of Trian Fund Managament, who is currently engaged in a proxy battle with The Walt Disney Company to obtain two seats on the company’s board, one for himself and one for former Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo, slammed The Walt Disney Company and specifically Marvel for being driven by agenda.
Nelson Peltz via David Rubenstein YouTube
In an interview with Financial Times, Peltz told the outlet’s Harriet Agnew, “People go to watch a movie or a show to be entertained. They don’t go to get a message.”
He then specifically took aim at Marvel Studios’ current business model of representation that has resulted in some major box office disasters such as The Marvels. He said, “Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that?”
He also questioned, “Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?”
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.
Peltz’s criticisms are not unheard of. Even Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has indicated that the studio has lost its way with identity politics and the pushing of agenda.
Feige informed The Movie Business Podcast Jason Squire what Marvel’s secret to success was, “And I guess to distill it down of what lessons are learned: is to entertain the audience at every turn.”
Feige elaborated, “Frank Capra has a quote that our co-president Louis D’Esposito quotes often, which is — basically to distill down to: entertain first. You can have as many beautiful messages, and beautiful life theories, and beautiful thematics that you want to put into the world that all of us do, and all of our filmmakers do, but if you’re not entertaining first it will fall on deaf ears.”
“I think that’s always been the way,” Feige added. “Thankfully, you’re making the kind of movies that you love to see that also goes into entertaining yourself, which is what we also try to do here at Marvel Studios.”
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 27: Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige (R) and guests attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 World Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on April 27, 2023. (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for Disney)
Not only did Peltz take issue with Marvel’s embrace of identity politics and its penchant to push agenda, he criticized the company for engaging in political activities and used Ben & Jerry’s recent statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as an example.
“You’ve got to get these politics out of the boardroom,” he said. “Ben & Jerry’s job is to sell ice cream, not to make political statements. And these people use anything for a soap box that they have no right to do.”
Peltz continued, “I have my own feelings about a ceasefire. Israel has got to get a few things squared away before they get a ceasefire because what happened to them was despicable.”
Nelson Peltz via David Rubenstein YouTube
The billionaire also shared that he advised Unilever, the British conglomerate that owns Ben & Jerry’s, Dove, Hellman’s, and Axe among others, to continue to do business in Russia despite the war in Ukraine.
He said, “I told Unilever not to pull out and so far they’ve listened. If we pull out of Russia, they will take our brands for themselves. I don’t think that’s a good trade.”
Peltz also noted that P&G and Colgate-Palmolive also didn’t pull out, “Why the hell should we? . . . We’re competing on the world stage with these products.”
Bob Iger via New York Times Events YouTube
As reported by Dawn Chmielewski at Reuters, a Disney spokesman responded to Peltz comments saying, “”This is exactly why Nelson Peltz shouldn’t be anywhere near a creatively driven company.”
The most recent Marvel Cinematic Universe film, The Marvels, grossed less than $200 million at the box office. The film has at minimum a reported production budget of $267 million, which does not include reshoots that were done in 2023. Even using $267 million as the final production budget the film needed to gross $667.5 million to break even. It’s highly likely the film lost hundreds of millions.
Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
The company’s most recent TV series, Echo, also performed poorly. All five episodes of the series were released back on January 9th on both Disney+ and Hulu. According to Nielsen the series only garnered 731 million minutes in its debut week. By its second week it was no longer even listed on Nielsen’s Top 10 charts performing worse than Netflix’s The Crown, which brought in 374 million minutes.
For comparison Loki Season 1’s premiere, which was a single episode in June 2021, racked up 731 million minutes.
(Right): Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ Echo, releasing on Hulu and Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2023. All Rights Reserved.
What do you make of Peltz’s comments criticizing Disney and Marvel? What do you make of Disney’s response?
