Mike Murdock
Avenger
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2014
- Messages
- 11,229
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To be honest, that doesn't really sound like George Lucas (it does sound like Avi Arad, who always was a toy salesman but at least once hired people who made quality stories to go with the toys). George Lucas lost credibility because he descended into his own self-indulgence of ideas without anyone acting as a check to say whether they were good ideas or not (and that he probably needed other people to help write or direct because his good ideas were poorly executed). LucasArts was a business, of course, but Star Wars is far more likely to be run like a business now that it's owned by Disney (certainly, the avenues for profits are being expanded upon).
As I eluded to, I think Arad's problems were always there. He revitalized Marvel (or at least kept it afloat during its dark days) through toy sales. He also gained revenue by leasing movie rights. In retrospect, of course, that looks like a terrible idea, but there was no reason to think Marvel could make their own movies. The contracts themselves also look bad (Spider-Man being the best contract for Marvel because they at least got to keep merchandising rights), but Marvel didn't really have much in the way of bargaining power. The company was dangerously close to going into receivership and selling off properties entirely piecemeal (imagine Spider-Man being sold to DC, for example, and no longer being part of the Marvel Universe). In that context, just selling movie rights doesn't seem so bad.
But then things recovered but he didn't change tactics. Even when people were interested in making movies in-house, he was still interested in selling off properties. I'm not sure what movies they actually had left, but they had to reacquire Iron Man and Hulk just to kickstart their franchise. On the cartoon side of things (where I thought his greatest success was), the script quality declined while the absurdity increased (every Avenger got their own mech costume of sorts that could be sold as a toy to increase sales). Then again, while the emphasis on toys has declined, the writing quality hasn't ever recovered even after Arad left.
He, of course, deserves no credit for Spider-Man beyond the initial decision to lease the property (which did lead to Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2). His involvement in their franchise didn't begin until SM3. Specifically, he clashed with director Sam Raimi by wanting to insert Venom into the movie. While I was thrilled at the time that Venom would be in the story (and couldn't give a crap about Sandman), the fact remains that Raimi was the best thing going for that franchise and meddling in a way that Raimi was uncomfortable with was a bad idea.
