RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Business Insider — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 1 sourcesStan Lee in "Stan Lee: The Final Chapter." Convrsly Productions
Jon Bolerjack filmed Stan Lee's final years as he did lucrative autograph signings around the world.
Bolerjack turned that footage into the documentary, "Stan Lee: The Final Chapter."
The director recounted the years and many roadblocks he overcame to make his documentary.
"How much money did I make?"
It's a question that Jon Bolerjack never thought he'd hear the man sitting next to him ask. Comics legend Stan Lee 's ideas and hustle birthed an empire. So how could he not know about all the money he'd just made doing a signing at a comic-book convention?
That was the moment Bolerjack says he knew something awful was happening to the man behind some of Marvel Comics' most beloved characters .
It was 2015, and Bolerjack, a long-haired, tattooed comic-book fanatic, had been chronicling Lee's every move as his personal videographer. He would stay in the legend's inner circle until Lee's death in November 2018 at age 95.
Lee was at the height of his popularity in the last decade of his life, thanks to the smashing success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the box office. It made him a marquee name on the convention circuit, demanding top dollar to sit in a chair and sign whatever was put in front of him. After his appearances, his team would count the piles upon piles of cash he made.
Bolerjack's 108-minute documentary, " Stan Lee: The Final Chapter, " available now on Video on Demand, chronicles the dark side of Lee's final four years. The doc depicts an exhausted and seemingly unaware Lee on a nonstop convention schedule, dozing off between autograph signings and asking his bodyguard-turned-manager, Max Anderson, if he's made enough money to retire.
The documentary's journey to the screen would be a long one: Anderson sued Bolerjack in 2019 for breach of contract, alleging that Bolerjack had broken an "oral agreement" between them that he would give Anderson all his footage of Lee.
"My lawyer thought it would take six months… it ended up taking six years," Bolerjack told Business Insider. The case was dismissed in June 2025 when Anderson did not report for the jury trial. That same month, Anderson was sentenced to a year and one day in prison after pleading guilty to tax fraud, after allegedly failing to report $1.2 million in proceeds to the IRS.
A month earlier, Lee's daughter, JC , settled a lawsuit she brought against Anderson, alleging he stole over $21 million from her father; the terms were not disclosed.
Stan Lee taking a rest in the back room of a comic convention in "Stan Lee: The Final Chapter." Convrsly Productions
Anderson denies ever taking money from Lee. He told Business Insider he had a different arrangement with the icon: He would have Lee sign things.
"I got a majority of my money on signatures," Anderson told Business Insider. "I would sell that to the dealers. So my autographs, a signed comic book of Spider-Man #1, I'm getting $1,500 to $2,000."
As for the documentary footage implying Lee's convention schedule was too grueling for a man of his age, Anderson said that Lee preferred to stay busy, particularly after the death of his wife, Joan, in 2017.
"He didn't want to be home anymore because there's no reason to be home," Anderson said.
Though several stories about Lee allegedly being taken advantage of were written before his death , Bolerjack, whom Lee nicknamed "Hairspray" and made his personal assistant in the final months of his life, said few realized the extent of what was going on. Or perhaps they didn't want to know.
"My time with Stan taught me that Stan was most useful as a caricature," Bolerjack said. "He just smiles, says 'Excelsior,' signs your comic — they don't want any depth. They just want Stan's face on a lunchbox and don't want to deal with the other stuff. So my story makes that a little more muddy, showing Stan as a living, breathing person."
Searching for a True Believer
Bolerjack took Lee's death hard. For months, he mourned the loss of his friend; he said it ate away at him that no one knew the extent of the abuse Lee allegedly went through at the end of his life.
Bolerjack said he tried to alert the press while Lee was alive, offering a thumb drive containing his footage to several news outlets, but never heard back from any of them.
By 2019, Bolerjack had decided to make a documentary.
"I thought it was important to his legacy that it be as honest as possible, and I didn't want to concede that control," Bolerjack said.
But he needed help. With a background in post-production and film marketing, Bolerjack knew some people in the business. It led him to connect with Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner (2008's "Food, Inc.").
The two agreed to co-direct a documentary on Lee's final years, with the footage Bolerjack shot being the main focus. But the bites they got on the project lost momentum when the pandemic hit in 2020; Kenner ultimately walked away.
"Stan Lee: The Final Chapter" director Jon Bolerjack, left, with Stan Lee. Convrsly Productions
Bolerjack rebounded post-pandemic when he connected with the production company Edgeline Films (2016's "Weiner," and the Showtime series "Couples Therapy"); they agreed in 2021 for Bolerjack to co-direct a docuseries with longtime editor/director Kim Roberts, according to emails viewed by Business Insider. They began to take meetings, but Bolerjack said some executives minimized the importance of the subject matter.
"They would tell us comic book fans don't watch documentaries — there was this odd pushback," Bolerjack said. "We would tell them, a billion people saw 'The Avengers' movies. We had to explain to them what Comic Con was and how hundreds of thousands of people show up. They just didn't get it."
Eventually, Roberts left the project.
Going it alone
By 2023, Bolerjack was back where he started: He had the footage of Lee's final years, but nowhere to s...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.