Final Script

“How Marvel Went From Bankruptcy to Billions”

Student’s name : Mohammed Shahrear Khan Akib

Student’s ID : 2020-01-95-098

Course name : Business Research Methodology

Course Code : MBA 511, Section 03

Submitted to : Mr. Nazmul Hassann Talukdar

Submission Date : 17th May,2020.

Love You 3000

-Tony Stark (Iron Man)
1. What’s wrong with the company?
Marvel Studios is also known as Marvel Films from 1993-1996 is an American television and
film studio that is a concern of The Walt Disney Studios. Marvel Studios is also famous and
known for the production of the Marvel Cinematic Univerese films which are based on the
characters that seems to appear in the comics by Marvel publications.

Marvel is not the only one in the industry to get bankrupt in the industry but there is DC, Marvels
strongest competition also was on the pick of getting bankruptcy during late 80’s. But they
somehow collaborated with Warner’s Brothers widely known as WB and which helped them
eventually from Bankruptcy .

Marvel filed for bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on the end of the year 1996. The
company started losing all its money for taking debt of around $1.7 million highest debt owned
by Disney at that time and for that reason one-third of Marvel employees were laid off.

Marvel went bankrupt for a set of reasons, but it all gets clear to the fact that is also known as
“Collector’s Bubble Theory” which busted for the millions of Marvel fans for some wrong
decisions.

'The comics were massively overvalued'

In late 60’s last century, comic book following people was forming a club or group through the
earliest platforms. The distribution system for comics was as same as newsstand magazines, it
became difficult to find back issues, and people could not always find the comic they were
looking for. The direct market for comics was established by Phil Seuling and people started
coming up with physical comic book stores. Collectors started realizing that they could get a lot
of money for specific antique comics.

Collecting comics as an investment began to enter the mainstream at the end of the year 1970.
From 1980’s, non-comics readers started collecting comics. Companies were producing comics
to serve collectors with “special editions” and “first issues” and “alternate covers.” Writers and
cartoonists were becoming such celebrities that a group of them shifted from Marvel to form
Image Comics. Their presence at conventions did bring a huge mass.

By this time everyone with a pencil and a dime was publishing comics, comic shops were
booming everywhere, and the major companies overflowed the market with material distribution
to uphold the market share.

People started buying huge comics to store them, thinking they would pay for their kids’ college
educations, like as if every copy would be next #1 Action Comics. The ultimate peak of this
craziness was the Death of Superman.
In the mean time a financier called Ron Perlman brought Marvel and due to his some indecisions
everyone started losing their interests on comic and stopped buying them

So Marvel, who had invested a lot of money producing a lot of comic books, found themselves
in debt, sales plummeting, and their stock price falling down and declared bankruptcy.

Major reasons for MARVEL to declare themselves as bankrupt,

➢ Marvel was sold to a financier called Ron Perlman who had no emotional connection.
➢ Perlman started changing the business strategy that Marvel used to follow
➢ It started losing the core selling proposition and which was selling stories.
➢ Perlman increased the price of the comics by appealing to collectors
➢ Glowing cover at night made them sell higher but eventually with no storyline
➢ People had to buy the poor characters book to know the story even if they do not like
them
➢ The company went public in share market in 1990 and shareholders were expecting more
return
➢ Marvel doubled their production for better return but people stopped responding to buy
the huge collection
➢ Marketing Team started giving direction of the characters over writers and cartoonist.
➢ Quality of the content decreased and Marvel started losing customers
➢ Distribution was also a major problem
➢ Comic stores started to shut down for not selling the comics.
➢ Investors had rage against Marvel for years.
➢ Marvel collaborated with a Toy manufacturing company which turned out to be a flop.
2. How did they overcome the challenges?

Marvel Studios released 23 films so far since 2008 under the banner of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe, which includes Iron Man (2008) to Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). These
movies are interrelated with each other. The One-Shots produced by the studio and the television
shows produced by Television. In 2004, David Maisel was hired as COO of Marvel Studios as he
had a plan for the studio to self-finance movies. Marvel already overcame the debt scenario by
certain movie rights to a total of 10 characters from Marvel's huge plan for the future. Marvel
had $525 million to make a maximum of 10 movies based on the company's properties over
eight years according to the standard of the original deal.

Those characters were: Ant-Man, The Avengers, Black Panther, Captain America, Cloak &
Dagger, Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Power Pack and Shang-Chi.

Initially Marvel Studios was in discussion with Universal Pictures to become their distributor
worldwide, as Universal owned the film rights to both Hulk and Namor since the very
beginning. The studio also negotiated with Paramount Pictures. Marvel took back rights in five
foreign territories from Paramount for pre-sell to meet that demand. In 2005, Marvel announced
the Merrill Lynch financing deal with Paramount was on as marketer and distributor. Also, the
parent company changed its name from Marvel Enterprises, Inc. to Marvel Entertainment,
Inc. to reflect the change to self-production. In November 2005, Marvel gained the film rights to
Iron Man from New Line Cinema. Marvel revealed that it had regained the film rights to Hulk
from Universal in February 2006 in exchange for letting Universal own the distribution rights
to The Incredible Hulk In April 2006, Thor was announced to be a Marvel Studios production.
Lions Gate Entertainment dropped the Black Widow motion picture project by giving the rights
back to Marvel. In addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios was also involved
with the production of other Marvel-character film franchises that have exceeded $1 billion in
North American box office revenue: the X-Men and Spider-Man multi-film franchises.
Marvel Studios is also developing television series which will air on Disney+, and will oversee
production for remaining Marvel Television series following its folding into Marvel Studios. . In
November, Marvel Studios signed a lease with Raleigh Studios to host its headquarters and
production offices and film the next four movies on the studios' slate, including Iron Man
2 and Thor, at their Manhattan Beach facilities within 2008. In 2009, Marvel attempted to hire a
team of writers to help come up with creative ways to launch its lesser-known properties, such as
Black Panther, Cable, Iron Fist, Nighthawk, and Vision. In early 2009, Sony returned all Spider-
Man television rights in exchange for an adjustment to the movie rights.
Marvel Cinematic Universe –Earnings in numbers

Film Year Box Office Earnings

Iron Man 2008 $585,174,222

The Incredible Hulk 2008 $263,427,551

Iron Man 2 2010 $623,933,331

Thor 2011 $449,326,618

Captain America: The First Avenger 2011 $370,569,774

Avengers Assemble 2012 $1,518,594,910

Iron Man 3 2013 $1,215,439,994

Thor: The Dark World 2013 $644,783,140

Captain America: The Winter Soldier 2014 $714,766,572

Guardians of the Galaxy 2014 $774,176,600

Avengers: Age of Ultron 2015 $1,043,000,000

Avengers: Infinity War 2018 $2,048,000,000

Total $ 10251192712

The Universe that used to be in debt once now encompasses 11 films, seven TV series and a slate
of movies planned until 2020. The continuing storyline is what makes the franchise so special -
and so successful - says Howe. Marvel has got a better head start on marketing their movies than
anyone else which also helped them to bring them this far.

Major strategies for MARVEL which made them bounce back,

➢ Producing own movies under their own banner
➢ Coming up with different comic character stories that are inter connected with each other.
➢ Merging with Disney & Disney plus
➢ Coming up with Series based online shows in Netflix and alike online platforms.
3. What more you would do if you were the decision maker?

If I would be given the authority to take decisions for the Marvel then I would take all these
decisions that I am stating below for the betterment of the Marvel along with the fans who have a
high expectation from it.

➢ Select for experienced inexperience

Not necessarily one has to be from same background to become an expert. Experience comes from
communication and with time and if someone has any urge to become someone. Few companies are
prepared to take this sort of gamble. I would select for experience that overlaps with their existing
knowledge .I would ask them to socialize with the new employee and the society that they
effectively neuter the value of his or her outside expertise.

➢ Leverage a stable core

To balance the new talent, voices, and ideas it brings into each movie, Marvel holds on to a small
percentage of people from one to the next. The stability they provide allows Marvel to build
continuity across products and create an attractive community for fresh talent Business
organizations such as 3M and Nestlé embrace a similar strategy. Because I highly believe
organizations that preserve the core, revitalize the periphery, and understand relationship networks
can enable renewal, dynamism, and flexibility.

➢ Keep challenging the formula

I would come out of the box and offer more to our target group with lot more combination of
positive and negative emotions with twist which would make the target group restless for the
next release

➢ Cultivate customers’ curiosity

Devoted comic book fans are given countless other ways, along with hidden and overt references to
other movies, internal or external to the universe. Most approaches to sustaining creativity and
innovation focus on building a culture or following a process.
 ➢ Stick to the core plan

I would ask for a yearly plan and a blueprint to get to know more briefly that how my team will
achieve the goal in a systematic way sticking to the core plan and goal obviously.

➢ Guerrilla marketing

Along with my marketing team is an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise in
an unconventional way in order to promote a product just make it more interesting to mass.

➢ Diversification in stories

I would ask our writers not to come up with cliché stories rather focus on to make them diversified.

➢ Coming up with stories which are interrelated

I would ask my writers to come up with such interactive stories which will definitely be inter
connected with each other which will keep our audience more engaged with ourselves.

➢ Coming out of shell where only America exists

What we get to see in Marvel Movies that every story is based on New-York. I would discuss with
my team to write and connect more people to the stories by coming out of a state of a country and
spread it to the other part of the world. That is how we will get more coverage along with our loyal
audience.
4. What is your learning’s from this case that you can apply in real
corporate world here in Bangladesh?

First of all I would like to state what I got to learn by reviewing the given case for Marvel and how
they fought back even after declaring themselves for bankrupt.

➢ Marvel Studios transformed themselves into a meaningful brand: Almost everyone who
watches movie know what Marvel is. Marvel has different segmented fan following from the
age group from infant to aged. Starting from the movie series and its merchandise Marvel has
set brand recognition into people mind.

➢ They were a first mover: After the success of Batman in movies the way Marvel launched
X-men and Spiderman in the movies and the way it continued their legacy is really
commendable. The will always get the point for first mover in the industry whether if it is for
movies or online series.

➢ Diversification: Diverse story starting from a orphan boy who was seeking love became a
super hero Spiderman, a outside world creature started living here in the world, later became
an reporter (Superman) and lastly the T-challa African superhero Black Panther. Their story is
diversified and interconnects with each other and accepted by the people all around the world.

➢ Calculated profitability: I would like to ask my finance team to make a budget what Marvel
did with their allocated money in few years. Marvel did splendid job with their financing.

➢ Leadership: Marvel being fast mover has always been leading its competitors from the top
end with their innovative and good script with good camera direction.

➢ Competitive positioning: Marvel has their own fan base of their creation , which has always
kept Marvel way ahead from its competitors. Marvel always leads from front.

➢ Assembling it all together : Marvel has always assembled its every creation interconnected
with each other. From WAVE Series to Movies and any merchandise to toy action figure
Marvel has assemble everything right on point.
I have chosen GMG Airlines as my corporate company to imply the lessons that I have got from
the case study.

GMG Airlines was an airline in Bangladesh. It was the countries first, and until recently, the
largest private airline established in 1997.In 2009 Beximco Group bought a major stake in GMG
Airlines. In March 2012, GMG announced suspension of operations pending acquisition of new
fleet and it the suspension is still running.

Major Learning’s that I could use or offer to GMG Airlines

➢ Turning GMG into a meaningful brand

➢ Making GMG a first mover in terms of service

➢ Diversification in service both home & abroad

➢ Calculated profitability for future to tackle or overcome bankruptcy

➢ Improvement in service could prove our leadership in the Airlines Industry in Bangladesh

➢ Competitive position than the other who still are lacking behind in many sector

➢ Assembling the cargo and passenger service all together to minimize the cost and fuel
consumption.