Disney just laid off the guy it bought Marvel from… but that’s probably a good thing
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge
Disney has laid off Marvel Entertainment chair Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter as part of its layoffs affecting 7,000 workers, according to a report from The New York Times. Perlmutter, who’s been a Marvel executive since 1993 and joined Disney when Marvel was acquired in 2009, is a divisive figure.
Perlmutter helmed Marvel during its sale to Disney and later served as an executive chair. During his 30-year tenure at Marvel, Perlmutter has been blamed for holding back the inclusion of women and people of color in the studio’s films. In a set of leaked emails from 2014, Perlmutter argued that past superhero movies with a female lead flopped, while a memoir from Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that he had to get past Perlmutter’s “roadblocks” when…
