Unblinded with Sean Callagy - Inside Marvel Studios w/ Founder David Maisel

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

In this action-packed and deeply insightful episode, Sean sits down with Marvel Studios Founder David Maisel to explore leadership inside one of the most influential storytelling universes in the world. From structuring billion-dollar creative processes, to navigating pressure, to empowering high-performance teams, David reveals the real inner workings behind Marvel’s success.This conversation blends creativity, strategy, emotional intelligence, and the realities of working inside a global machine that shapes culture. Whether you’re a business owner, creative, or simply a fan of the MCU, this episode will reshape the way you think about building teams, leading under pressure, and managing legacy.TIMESTAMPS00:00 — IntroductionSetting the stage for David Grant’s background and the Marvel universe.03:12 — How David got into MarvelUnexpected journey + early roles.07:45 — Creativity inside a global machineHow Marvel maintains innovation while working at scale.11:50 — Leadership under pressureDecision-making when the stakes are sky-high.16:30 — Managing talent + creative personalitiesHow Marvel balances ego, vision, and execution.21:14 — Lessons from Kevin Feige & Marvel cultureSystems, standards, and communication.26:40 — Handling failureHow Marvel adapts, pivots, and recovers publicly & internally.31:55 — Storytelling as a behavior-changing forceWhy humans connect to myth, legacy, and the hero’s journey.38:10 — Supporting directors & creativesWhat makes a “Marvel-ready” creative partner.44:25 — Pressure, burnout, and mental disciplineHow to stay aligned in chaos.48:55 — What entrepreneurs can learn from MarvelScale, systems, talent, humility, and resilience.53:20 — Legacy & long-term visionWhat David wants to leave behind—professionally and personally.59:30 — Closing thoughtsHIGHLIGHTSHow Marvel structures creativity for huge franchisesWhat it takes to thrive under intense pressureWorking with Kevin Feige & understanding the Marvel processBalancing storytelling, business, and fan expectationsHandling failure in public viewWhy systems matter more than speedThe psychology behind heroic storytellingLeadership lessons for entrepreneurs from Marvel StudiosThe importance of humility and managing egosHow Marvel thinks about legacyMEMORABLE QUOTES“Creativity is nothing without discipline.”“Pressure doesn’t destroy you — lack of clarity does.”“At Marvel, the story comes first. Everything else serves that.”“Leadership isn’t loud. It’s consistent.”“You’re never the smartest person in the room at Marvel — and that’s the point.”“Failure is only final when you stop iterating.”“Great teams aren’t built by accident. They’re built by process.”

Marvel had a massive dormant asset. 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 Hahn and Ben Midler.

If I had to pick one thing that I'm proudest about, it was the one and all. The one and only David Maisel. Let's hear for David. And by the way, David is a real publicity horror. 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 was at times 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's source. Let's hear it for David one more time. Thank you, David. Okay, so first, did I overly hype this or is this actually you, sir? Now you got me pumped about it. This is, I need you to walk by my side all the time. That's a deal. So, David, thank you. It is 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, 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 spent 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 we're, like, this is real and accurate. So would you guys be up for hearing, like, how this all unfolded,

the yes is David had a cause, the mindset of David, would that be helpful for you if yes, say yes? So David, please, you want to take it from the beginning of, you were born, just kidding. You know, but yeah, what drove you? You were a comic fan as a child. Your mom was going to 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? 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 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 I 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 Vossed 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 artist 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 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... And if I guess, David, if it's okay, I'm going to interrupt only in service of you on footnotes. So 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? So what happened do you think that he saw in your identity and you that caused him to say yes? 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, a, learning from me from this when I look back at my career. One was the initiative. The worst that could happen is I didn't hear back from Ovid's. You know, this was back in the day of actual printing out your resume at Kinko's and sending a letter. So it's costing me a postage stamp to do this. 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. InWox, 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, is 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. 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, you know, why the job, right place at the right time. And that was about 90% of it. And 10% 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 it just makes those clients feel like they have a better team. Yeah. I do remember saying to him, I'm not normally, normally what I'd call, you know, 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 didn't want to see me with one of his friends or enemies across the table next week.

Integrous scarcity. Let's put up think back and forth. Integrous scarcity, congruence fully present. Right, so please. Exactly. So now it begins. So 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 secret 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 my first day, 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 Lovitz, 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 11 p.m. 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, 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 Hahn and Bet Midler. Oh my God. And they weren't very happy about how they were treated. And, you know, 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. All right?

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. 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. Wow.

So the 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 asked 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 in New York? And there's a guy named Bob Eiger, who's the president of that division. And you can help Bob out. And so I actually was put into... to what's called strategic planning, corporate development at Disney, a very powerful group. My office was next to somebody you're gonna 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 Eiger, who I eventually, as you guys all are aware, sold Marvel to over 10 years later. and Kevin Mayer was there as well.

Can I just like emphasize? So 10 years later, David will sell Marvel to Bob Eiger as Disney's CEO and Kevin Mayer helping and supporting and running the transaction, who will be here speaking on Friday. So how completely insane is the power of yes? That's the story this man's life, a cold letter. He worked at one of top consulting companies in the country, and a couple of 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 it for that for David for a second? Please, David. And to that, Sean, I think, just thinking about this in real time,

I told you about my meeting, Bob Eager 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 to steal. And he didn't take

that as salesmanship. He took that as substance. And I think, you know, the reputation that I had back then really helped me facilitate a lot of those transactions. You know, then the rest of the time before 2003, Ovitz got and 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. He is and still is a legend. 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 a time 2003 came...

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? Yeah, frame, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 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 division 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. 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 Manuel that a lot of you guys have now probably heard about the inspiration for the Ari Gold character and 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, you know, spent the weekends, so now we're back in 2003, basically in my sweatpants in the apartment I still live in, thinking about what I'm going to do. And I put together the thoughts, business plan, creative thoughts, of what the MCN. you 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 a hundred 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. You know, so there's movies that are not necessarily as good at 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 that 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 of those movies had done well. But nobody wanted the other characters. And Marvel, if I'm sorry, so, and just for everybody's presence, that fair, that that would have been the equivalent of DC, 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? Yeah, it is fair. Those were the prime jewels that were perceived 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. With Marvel, 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. 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 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. Yeah, unbelievable. So I was here for that. So David, Marvel, 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 going? So the good news is in 2003 in 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. And so I thought about that for a few minutes. Like no heroic unique identity as filmmaker. Zero.

No. Yeah. At that time, even though I had done well with the Broadway show, everyone in Hollywood would have thought that I was pure business, basically. And so I had to first meet somebody there, and there's also where the relationships come into play. Essentially just going out to the vast, you know, 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 sick. 60% of Marvel, a man named Mike Promutter. And I was able to have my hour and a half lunch pitched to Ike, to use that word.

And what was important about that meeting and is I researched it and learned just from the information out there that Ike was very private, that he didn't trust Hollywood necessarily 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 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.

And I could tell that I 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. You know, I said, give me just cash. I mean, 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 henhouse.

And that started the journey that brought the MCU to life. 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 the ask 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 he understood and mastered david mazel 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? Yeah, I think I think yes. Yeah. It's I've had the privilege of working with some very tough, smart, complicated men with Michael Lovitz and Ari Manuel and Ike Bramutter, all who've done extremely well. And I think working with gentlemen like that, you know, 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. If you could feel that certainty emanating from David, say yes. Yes. Yeah, awesome. So, David, it becomes a yes. Anything that you want to share with that?

Then please take us from 2003 forward. And again, you guide me because each one of these things has a lot of, obviously, details that it can go into. So a masterful, if you find David to be a masterful communicator sales. Obviously, that's how he did all this. So please. So I remember vividly that Ike drove me to the airport to leave Florida at the time. And I still wasn't sure if I was going to be hired.

And I got the offer to join. And that was the end of 2003. Between then and the launch of Iron Man, 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 create significant significant value. 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 networks 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, you know, this is somewhat of a zero-sum game with the box office. And I think that part, looking at something fresh and learning about it and really thinking about what could be

is the part that got me the most excited and then there was a huge amount of execution that had to happen including meeting night including getting hired that led up to the opening night of ironman so the hurdles in you know that had to go through sequentially were one i had to convince the board i was now there i was made president of what was called what was called the studio, but it wasn't really a studio at the time. It was just giving notes on scripts to licensed 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 continued 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, things that have zero risk are normally too good to be true, or they don't exist at all. How many, David, before you were green lighted for the more of 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 just like, hey, we should do with something or how involved were you

in the macro construct of this? Yeah, I'd say it would be impossible to be more involved. because I gave birth to the idea that weekend. The idea of a hundred, you can find 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 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 it was 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? Right? 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 a 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. 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 them sell Universal to Edgar Bronfman Jr., I think CAA. 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, he 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% 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. And he said, it's almost like Bob said, in retrospect, Bob said, well, Kevin Mayer and my board like this deal.

Ron said, well, General Electric liked 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. 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 was thinking ahead.

If I ever sell this company to a Disney, I don't want to be obligated to distribute every movie with Hulk in it through Universal. Because you want to control the marketing, you want to control that, and you don't want to pay the fees. And so when I had to go do the legal contract for this, I actually handle 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. But then I defined Hulk movies as Hulk as the star, or in the title. So when you see Avengers and you see Hulk in the Avengers movie and you see Disney distributing it, it's all because of that one sentence in the contract. Well, it's here for Naval. And that sentence when we sold the company to Disney probably increased the value in a nine-figure amount to what they pay.

Wow. Where we didn't have that language, Paramount, for five movies, Disney actually bought Paramount 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 now, I had to raise $525 million,

a whole other 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. Amazing. And I knew some of the door,

men and the club owners so that helped and what year is the state 2004 you're raising half a million dollars I worked in New York for a year in 2004 the 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 oh my god Marvel was able to get, we got five percent. Do you think this dude can go from Helodiasim?

And it all worked, right? So this is not like he was making deals that were bad for people. This worked, please. 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, 8% of the $1,000. $18 million for their trouble. So even if it went bad, they didn't have the paper, and most of it was insured by Ambach.

So a long story there, but there is a ways to really facilitate the yeses from each of the people along the line. 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 the 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, you know, our stock went down for five years after I announced the studio. People really didn't believe in this. So when I say, you know, Warner Brothers let their rights for Iron Man go, you know, they were in an environment. where that wasn't a crazy thing.

Nobody, they just thought it's a robot movie. You know, 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. Wow. 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, we were leaning towards, the second because 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 everyone 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 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. Unbelievable. If you're, like, this is really happening. Like, 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, 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 not fair. There did it be a huge amount of yeses and also some good fortune. Like I mentioned, if there wasn't the bond bubble and, you know, we were required to put up, you know, $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. If, you know, if Robert Downey had a huge hit the year before Iron Man, maybe he'd be less hungry to do Iron Man and cut a good deal with me. So, you know, life is interesting, but I realize 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 him. And I'll remember a funny time where on this financing, the bank who did the financing, I won't mention them now, but they should be proud. It was a really good bank. So I can mention it was Merrill Lynch, it's public.

We had negotiated this and they retraded the deal. and I was at their office and they said, we'll fund two-thirds of the movie, not 100% of the movie. You gotta put up a third of the money. And I literally was in a conference room and I said, I'm not gonna leave. This is wrong. You can't re-trade this deal. We're a public company. This was negotiated for a year and basically held my breath in the conference room.

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. And we ended up making an arrangement that we would keep five territories, sell those territories. It's called presales. And it came down to two words.

They said, okay, sell the territories for at least the third of the budget. And I changed it to a target of a third of the budget. to a target of a third of the budget. And that changed, that allowed us to get that done. So part of it is just not taking no for an answer, but, you know, also looking for a solution once the person at the other side of the table is realizing that you're resolute.

And then also in, I wasn't as kind here, but, you know, direct threatening that, you know, would go public with this retrade, which wasn't good of. for their reputation of Wall Street. And so their benefit, they compromised, and we ended up making a win-win together. I think it wherever you'd like to go.

Robert Downey, why him, the resistance, the timing, what was happening, please. 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 interested in seeing this movie. And so, and I had to make the core fans happy. Making the core fans happy was the easiest because me and. my protege, Kevin Feige, runs a 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. 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. And he also appeals to everybody, including women, strongly. I told Sean, I think after a getting to know him, my mother would have chosen for her son, first Robert, second, Dan Fleischman, and third myself. So at least I was in the top three, you know. And because Robert tried to pick her up. Dan was more respectful. And I was just, I was just David. So, you know, Robert came out of all of 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 John Favre was hired as director. John 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, 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 were 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. I think a hundred and three million, that's, we can make the best hundred and three million movie we can have. And then that way, if the film does two thirds of X-Men, or two-thirds of Spider-Man, we break even, and we make money on the toys. And that last sentence, again, 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 it 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 15 minutes

of Robert sitting in the workshop, working on his car, talking to Gwyneth Paltrow at the dinner table, and Robert and John Favro are so good at the table. 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's Soup, but they remember the humor, they remember the romance, they remember the fun, you know, intimate moments with the characters. Yeah.

How, just, like, can you, 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 the fact that he's. 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 maybe language you use, how we distinguish pitching from Integris influence is in our language. 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 and re-contextualizing, contrasting and contextualizing, contrasting and contrasting to cause the truth to come forward. And he's isolating every specific of the way. objection, and he's not overcoming them with a slick sentence. He's working through them because all that integrous 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. It was untapped value. It was sitting there at all these incredible characters

and all these incredible books, and he outlined in 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 was rooted on the value,

sermon, and creation, and that in 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 at 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? No, I think that's true. It's funny you go through this. I wish I had the benefit of going

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. But David can answer, that's exactly why we do this. Yeah. 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, I'll see how you feel about this statement, 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 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 agreements 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, or send your hand out from your hand, they say, well, will the board like it? It was sure okay? And these are icons, legends, and everybody 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 noes in a pitch over the fence and if it made sense to them, then they'd say yes and he decided he didn't want to be pushy,

he was never pushy. He was pulley. 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 correctly? Your thoughts? 100%. And to really try and 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 often, 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 the went to Universal in an old Ron Perlman deal years earlier.

Fox has the rights to all these other characters like Silver Surfer and Deadpool and X-Men, not minor characters. 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 Spider-Man or an X-Men movie. I never knew that he was going to buy Fox a decade later and bring us back X-Men. Thank God he did for our Smother 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. 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 I've hired him if he was just doing a payday? That's the question. I was so believed in him as an actor, I probably would have, to be honest, but it helps so much to see how much he cared 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 it. his talent and also his dedication. 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 Marble? Okay.

So, I mean, it's, did you clean the doors and make the pizza? 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. 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, you know, with other things.

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 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 Iron Man I needed a right-hand person because I was also coast 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. That's awesome. Let's hear for . Team, do we have, thank you, thank you. Team, do we have the clip right around the time,

the video from the Iron Man Red Carpet? I can give a quick context to this. What you're about to see, I didn't know existed until a couple years ago when somebody dug it up. And to show you how much people didn't believe in this thing, This is 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. 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 released, 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 delusional talking about the future of Marvel. We got that team?

Yeah, let's hit it. David and Maisel. And you're with Perfout? No, I'm the chairman of Marvel Studios. Yes, I'm going to speak for you. Cool. Specifically. This is the first one out of the gig for you guys.

It is. How do you feel? 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 Ironman brand

is just beyond our wildestreams. The process. I know some of your team had film experience, of course. But a lot of these guys over at Marble Entertainment, you know, they've been married with other films. And the first time, your process, how was that working with it? Well, you know, we put together a team. We had a group of people, Kevin Feigy, 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 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 and enthusiasm is exactly why we created an old studio. What are the future plans? More of the same. We're developing a whole bunch of movies.

In addition to the ones this summer, Iron Man and Hulk, are developing Captain America, we're 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 into the world. 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 seat 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. Good luck. Thank you. See it for David. So, 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? Yeah, that was the first time, actually, that I ever had announced that we're making an Avengers movie or Captain America at the store.

So it, you know, we're a public company, so you're supposed to be a little bit more coordinated in those things, but I was excited. Yeah, I mean... Do you guys see why I love this man already? 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 premiere and say you don't like the movie, right? So it's basically the ultimate excitement and boost. But yeah, the idea at the time, like to show you how bad this was, the my board, the day of Iron Man 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 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. 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. And what did Iron Man end up doing? So, again, the projection was like 35 million, and we ended up doing $108 million for the weekend. The weekend? Yeah. Wow. Let's hear for that.

That's crazy. And, you know, to put that in context, you know, this year, Superman did $125 million for its opening weekend, but that was $2,025 versus $2,08. Wow. 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 you get, 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 Berkel's house, who's a famous man, billionaire in L.A., 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. you know and thank God the word and mouth did really well and you know I think it was at 10 o'clock at night he said we're going to break a hundred million dollars dude and that's when I knew that one day I'd be sitting here with you Sean I've been talking about this let's hear it right here that's so fucking that is amazing so um do we have team do we have callie would you be cool with uh we talked about callie a little bit the uh act eye agent to ask a question or Is Callie Redder Function Team?

Yeah. All right. Let's bring Cali forward, if you don't mind. What a moment of pure magic and validation, where years of vision, risk, and relentless. 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 right now?

We use the word joy. And by the way, that question from AI was very nuanced and very touched me. It really did, which is rare because honestly, like at the end of the day, as Sean mentioned about the use of hours 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 Dan Fleischman such a good friend has been prodding me to do this for a decade or more and he he cares about my happiness and my joy so I know he was right but for any 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 watch the movies during COVID together, 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 people that we never would have that bond before. I was telling Sean when I was caretaking for 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. So she was a win-win for everybody. I think that, I pinched myself every day still, you know, that all these things came together. I'm still the biggest Marvel fan. and I know how rare having this level of success is.

You know, 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, 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 4 in the morning and my working hard. 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 less that I had the inherent capabilities and skills and sensitivities and passions to do this, but also just realize how fortunate I was to be there at the right time. Or one of these dominoes might not have happened. So joy is an interesting question, but I get so much joy from that and seeing this reaction from people and seeing people smile and understanding that there was heart and authenticity besides something that they might have enjoyed or fall in love with on their own. What's here for that?

And, and Callie. And also I enjoy beating the other movies at the box office. Yes. And Callie, any final acknowledgement from you of David, Measel 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.

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's one gift your path offers us all, it's this. When we lead with authenticity and service, 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 Call. It's here for Callie, by the way. All right. And please, yeah, what would you want these folks to be taking away, David, and final, final from you? You know, and I said, I need you by my side all the time. I think I need Cali by my side of it.

Yeah, let's go with that. Let's go create that universe, yes. I guess I would say in the reality of the world, which, as we know, 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. And if you have goals, business and are creative, and, you know, the, you know, that two, as you could 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. 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, you've kept that inner spark.

I was 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. 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. 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. I'll see for that. Thank you. And David, so just curious and, of course, looking for only authenticity, which is all that you're capable of, Callie, the act-eye agent, the acknowledgement, that's not scripted. Obviously, we prepared nothing for Callie with you coming in. I'm just curious, you see a lot out there. What are you thinking of a present to you around that, if anything? 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. 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. 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. Yeah, thank you. And in that moment, and 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? No, you're right. And as you could tell from telling the story, I think, you know, 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 Dan, who's 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. And what people can miss sometimes when you're that way, is the part that Callie identified. You know, so when you're, when you drill deep on the financing and the non-recourse or the board mechanics, 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, you know, 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. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And so, as we did that, As we draw to a conclusion, Dan Fleischman, 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 wasn't 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 just 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, world and servant leadership, caring, value, integrity just emanates from you. And 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's you know, is such

an inspiration to me. But there's aspects that Disney, and there's noble living of Walt Disney'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 following 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-front-line character and caused this massive series of entrepreneurial, impossible, yes after yes after yes leading to not an eight not a nine not a ten but as I counted I think ten billion is an eleven 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 super heroic 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 you ever speak, you have profoundly affected my life, you're profoundly affected lives in this room, and every time I ever feel exhausted or feel like quitting, I will think of what you did in taking five years from 2003 to 8 to get to Iron Man first happening in the creation of the MCU and everything happened before it.

I mean it, you're a new hero, inspiration, and teacher to me. And I thank you, brother, for being here today. Thank you, Sean. Thank you. Thank you so much. I feel very fortunate. Thank you. One more time, let's hear from Mr. David.

Maisel. Great job, brother. Thank you.