Co-creator of some of the most famous superhero characters in the world, including Spider-Man and Hulk, the late Stan Lee, who began his comic book career in 1939 at Timely Comics, a company that eventually became Marvel Entertainment, revealed a bad and unsatisfactory business deal he made with Disney.
According to Page Six, Lee, who passed away in 2018, just received $6 million in a deal with Disney due to poor legal advice from his lawyer at the time, who later took half the money from that deal.
The Manhattan-based writer and comic book artist, Lee, who died at 95, revealed the insufficient deal with Disney, which reportedly could have been much more profitable for him, in Jonathan Bolerjack’s documentary film Stan Lee: The Final Chapter.
The docu-film, which captures how Stan Lee was manipulated in various ways by different people who wanted to benefit from him and take control of his fortune, was scheduled to be released in June 2026, but hasn’t been released yet. The Marvel legend, Lee, who had a net worth of $50 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, in the unreleased documentary regarding his bad Disney deal, said:
“Nobody has made more bad business decisions than I have.”
Stan further noted:
“Disney wanted to buy Marvel and they offered me a contract giving me ten percent of Marvel’s profits, so, I said, ‘Man that’s wonderful.'”
As Stan Lee was still a Marvel employee at the time, it is not exactly clear what the deal was about or what he was particularly selling to Disney. However, elsewhere in the docu-film, Lee mentioned that it was his lawyer who persuaded him to take a single payment instead of the ten percent from the profit offered by Disney. Stan later stated:
“[The lawyer] wanted me to take it now because he wanted his share, so I listened to [my lawyer] and I did what he said.”
In the unreleased documentary, Stan Lee says, “I would’ve been part owner of Disney”
As Stan Lee once filed a lawsuit against Marvel over profits in films based on the superhero characters he created, he eventually reached a settlement in 2005. However, while talking about the Disney deal, Lee shared that if things went the right way, he would have had a significant financial stake in Disney. Stan said:
“If I had waited for this contract to come through, I would’ve been part owner of Disney. I would’ve been indescribably wealthy.”
Keep an eye on Soap Central for more.
Edited by Koustav Mandal