Marvel's "Avengers: Age of Ultron" has grossed $1.4 billion worldwide to date and is the sixth highest earning film of all-time. In any scenario, that is a smashing success, correct?
Apparently not.
Disney executives reportedly think "Age of Ultron" is a failure when compared to its 2012 predecessor. Bleeding Cool reports that the higher ups are disappointed that "Age of Ultron's" 74 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and box office results don't compare to the original's 92 percent and $1.5 billion global haul. Talk about high standards.
The "disappointing" reception to "Age of Ultron" may have contributed to Marvel's recent hierarchy shakeup. CEO Isaac Perlmutter was shown the door along with the Creative Committee, with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige remaining in charge of the MCU.
Perlmutter's exit was likely in the works for some time, as his eccentric and occasionally offensive behavior had been the stuff of rumors for years. In fact, he and the Creative Committee's overbearing management style was one of the main reasons Edgar Wright walked away from "Ant-Man."
Bleeding Cool's sources claim that tensions over at Disney have been boiling for a while and that Feige leveraged the underwhelming arrival of "Age of Ultron" to remove Perlmutter and the Committee from the filmmaking side of Marvel Studios. Unfortunately, both are still connected to Marvel's growing TV empire.
Phase Three of the MCU will kick off next year with "Captain America: Civil War" and "Doctor Strange." While it's unlikely that we see more of Feige's fingerprints on these films, future Marvel movies may feature a few new elements to them thanks to the recent changes up top.
Maybe "Avengers: Age of Ultron" underwhelmed audiences as a story, but to call the film an outright failure is just ludicrous.
