| Avi Arad | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 1948 (age 63) Ramat Gan, Israel |
| Occupation | Film Producer, businessman |
| Net worth | 78 million usd |
Avi Arad (Hebrew: אבי ארד; born August 1, 1948) is an Israeli-American businessman. He became the CEO of the company Toy Biz in the 1990s, and soon afterward became the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, a Marvel director, chairman, CEO and the founder of Marvel Studios.[1]
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Born in Giv'atayim, Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and raised there, Arad came to the United States during his college years and enrolled at Hofstra University to study industrial management. He earned a bachelor of business administration from the University in 1972.[2]
Along with Toy Biz co-owner Isaac Perlmutter, Avi Arad came into conflict with Carl Icahn and Ron Perelman over control of Marvel Comics in the wake of its 1996 bankruptcy. In the end, Arad and Perlmutter came out on top, with Toy Biz taking over Marvel Comics in a complicated deal that included obtaining the rights to Spider-Man and other superheroes that Marvel had sold earlier. He was involved in Marvel's emergence from bankruptcy and the expansion of the company's profile through licensing and movies.
On July 4, 2003, Arad became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
On May 31, 2006, Arad resigned his various Marvel positions, including his leadership of Marvel Studios to form his own production company, Avi Arad Productions. Although he is still producing projects for Marvel,[1] his first feature outside Marvel was the August 2007 film Bratz: The Movie. Other ventures will be an adaptation of the manga Ghost in the Shell, an adaption of Brandon Mull's best-seller teenage fantasy Fablehaven, an adaption of James Patterson's award winning teenage novel Maximum Ride, an adaption of BioWare's award winning video game, Mass Effect, and the adaptations of both Sony PlayStation properties Uncharted: Drake's Fortune[3] and inFAMOUS.[4] On August 25, 2010 it was announced that Arad was given a chair with the American branch of animation studio Production I.G in Los Angeles, California.[5]