More damning info is coming out about the shameful way Marvel Studios is "rewarding" director Jon Favreau for making Iron Man a blockbuster success...
Their original offer to Favreau for Iron Man 2? LESS THAN $5 MILLION!! Now I know some people will say that is a lot of money, but he only got $4 million for the first one, and that is chump change in the movie making business!
Or, if you're Robert Sanchez of movie news site IESB.net and author of the story that helped put the rumor mill in motion, the more appropriate word is "insulting." That's how he described Marvel's initial offer -- less than $5 million, according to Sanchez's sources -- in an interview with me yesterday.
Here's why that matters. In May, Favreau admitted during an episode of Howard Stern's popular radio show that he made $4 million for Iron Man and that, for a sequel, he'd hope to make 1% of the gross. Were he to have exactly that sort of deal today, Favreau would be taking home a (surprise!) $5.4 million check, going by the latest numbers at Box Office Mojo ($538.1 million globally).
Alas, he doesn't -- though he could be eligible to share in a small percentage of the film's profit, if there is any to report. Hollywood producers, Favreau told Stern, have a history of being stingy with profits.
Marvel can relate. Look at Spider-Man. A mega-hit by any measure, the web slinger's celluloid debut yielded $821.6 million in worldwide theater receipts in 2002. DVD sales brought in more than $200 million the same year and created a windfall for producer Sony (NYSE: SNE).
And what did Marvel make from this billion-dollar box-office bonanza? It made $10.4 million -- equal to just 1% of the gross -- according to the company's 2002 10-K annual report. Future deals with News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) 20th Century Fox for the X-Men and Fantastic Four series, Universal Studios for Hulk, and Lions Gate (NYSE: LGF) for The Punisher didn't change the equation much.
Thus the irony: Favreau apparently wants what Marvel, as a company, decided was so insufficient that it had to build a studio of its own.
Check out the related articles, and take the survey below:
- Marvel Makes Belated Offer to Favreau for Iron Man 2
- Iron Man 2 in Jeopardy! Marvel Suits Being Cheap with Favreau