Nicola Peltz’s Dad Asks: ‘Why Do I Have to Have a Marvel [Movie] That’s All Women?’

Let it be known that we at Jezebel have long been hip to Nelson Peltz‘s heinousness. We were there for the gallingly lavish wedding the 81-year-old billionaire business magnate threw his nepo baby, Nicola, and his far more amusing nepo baby-in-law, Brooklyn Beckham, one week after hundreds of migrant workers protested “modern-day slavery” and various human rights violations outside of his $23 million Palm Beach office. And we didn’t miss an update when the former planners of said wedding—the third that were hired, by the way—sued the Peltz family for breach of contract. Well, he’s back on his bullshit, baby.

For the last several months, Peltz’s multi-billion dollar asset management company, Trian Partners, has been angling to win not one but two seats on Disney’s board. In a new interview with the Financial Times about said effort and Peltz’s potential strategies for making Disney—a company that took in just shy of $89 billion in 2023—even more money, he took aim at the company’s “woke” agenda.

“Why do I have to have a Marvel [movie] that’s all women?” the businessman and “activist investor” reportedly wondered aloud. “Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that? Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?”

“People go to watch a movie or a show to be entertained,” he remarked later on in the interview. “They don’t go to get a message.”

Firstly, Black Panther does not have an entirely Black cast, just as The Marvels does not have an entirely female cast. Secondly, though The Marvels did, in fact, tank at the box office, Black Panther became an indisputable blockbuster and cultural phenomenon. Lest anyone (an elderly man, perhaps) forget, it made $1.35 billion worldwide. Even its sequel, in which the late Chadwick Boseman was tragically missing from, brought in $181.3 million, making it 2022’s second-best opening at the domestic box office. And there are obviously plenty of female-helmed films (Barbie, perhaps?) outside the Marvel universe that have become blockbusters, too.

That Peltz would be woefully unaware of this isn’t a surprise given his deeply problematic history. Peltz was, at one time, an admitted and enthusiastic Trump supporter who in 2020 went so far as to throw him a re-election fundraiser at his estate. I’ll note that he also told the FT he plans to vote for him again in 2024, though he’s “not happy” about it. He also once bragged to CNBC that he speaks with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Hell) on a weekly basis and that the pair have been friends for 10 years. I could go on, of course, but the point is: the man is a cartoon billionaire the likes of which Walt Disney himself couldn’t even draw.

As ever: Watch this space!

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