This is Planet Money from NPR.

Marvel Studios now makes some of the biggest movies in the world, but that is a relatively

new business model for Marvel.

For most of its history, Marvel was a company that sold paper or plastic to people.

Paper comic books or plastic toys.

Something physical retail products was the Marvel business model.

And that arguably started to change a little bit in 1993.

This is when Marvel Films was created, not to make movies, but to license Marvel superheroes

so other companies could make movies.

The idea was that Marvel would go find some big Hollywood studio.

That studio would pay Marvel some money to use a superhero and then make a big expensive

superhero movie.

Which conveniently would also be like a big expensive superhero commercial for Marvel's, comics

and toys, the real Marvel business back in the 90s.

And so licensing superheroes to movie studios was this low risk no brainer for Marvel.

And license they did.

To 20th Century Fox, Marvel licensed the movie rights to the X-Men.

Mutant and proud.

Chinshyn.

To Universal Pictures, the Hulk.

And to Sony Pictures went Marvel's most popular superhero of all.

I will never forget these words.

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