ICv2.com and The Motley Fool scrutinize what the surprise departures of two top licensing executives may mean to Marvel Entertainment and its investors.
On Monday, it was revealed that Tim Rothwell, president of Worldwide Consumer Products, and Bruno Maglione, president of Marvel International, had left the company — a move ICv2 says “could signal an end to the halcyon days of Marvel licensing.”
Their departure, “to pursue other opportunities,” comes more than a month after the resignation of Avi Arad as chairman and CEO of Marvel Studios, chief creative officer of Marvel.
ICv2 notes that Maglione and Rothwell were hired away from Universal in 2003, “in the heady days following the success of the X-Men and Spider-Man movies, and both men played a role in the later stages of Marvel’s phoenix-like rise from the ashes of Perelman-created bankruptcy, which was largely accomplished by infusions of risk-free licensing fees as Marvel parlayed its library of characters into cash and became primarily a licensing company in the process.”
The retailer website speculates that, “Perhaps Marvel’s licensing mavens have just maxxed out the potential of the company’s library of more than 5,000 characters (of which only a handful have demonstrated major licensing potential so far).”
According to The Motley Fool, Marvel will spread the duo’s workload among seven executives while the company searches for replacements.
