Avi Arad is an Israeli-American producer and businessman.
Born in Givatayim in Israel during the 1948 Israeli
War of Independence and raised there, Arad immigrated to the United
States after fighting in the Israel
Defense Forces in the 1967 Six-Day
War. He subsequently studied industrial management at Hofstra University
in New York and earned a BA in business administration from Hofstra
University’s Frank G. Zarb School of Business in 1972.
In the 1990s Arad became CEO of Toy Biz, the toy division
of Marvel Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.
Toy Biz co-owner Isaac Perlmutter and Arad came into conflict with Carl
Icahn and Ron Perelman over control of Marvel Comics when it went bankrupt
in 1996. Toy Biz took over Marvel Comics in a complex deal involving
obtaining the rights to Spider-Man and other superheroes that Marvel
had sold earlier. Afterwards, Arad was involved in Marvel’s emergence
from bankruptcy and its expansion through licensing and movie productions.
On May 31, 2006, Arad resigned from his Marvel positions
to form a new production company called Arad Productions. While he continues
to produce films for Marvel, his main focus is now on his own production
company.
Arad has written the stories for the movies The Invincible
Iron Man, and the TV series Mutant X, X-Men: Evolution, Spider-Man and
Bitsy Bears. His other filmography includes Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
