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Madhouse have made a reasonable number of good titles over time.
Their problem is financial success does not come their way that often.
Madhouse were formed in the 70s, a couple of years before Sunrise. While Sunrise quickly established major titles, Madhouse has not. In fact, Madhouse's only big selling title from before 2000 - and still is their highest-selling title - is Cardcaptor Sakura. From 2000 onwards, they only had two titles above 10k per volume - Death Note and Chobits. They've supported Satoshi Kon big time, with great quality results, but Kon was always a maverick in the industry - he wasn't a big seller. Redline was a major financial disaster for them after the time and money put into that - as good a movie as it is, it's not aimed to the Japanese audience at all. Takeshi certainly got a lot of exposure outside Japan for the film, but in Japan they couldn't even fill one cinema for it. Summer Wars sold quite well as well as decent box office results, but the money from that is what's keeping them alive - barely. They've done the Marvel deal out of necessity. Marvel pays them to make stuff - it's cost effective but it's existing at present.
As for Murayama, he was one of Madhouse's founders and was ex-Mushi staff. I.e. He worked in Tezuka's studio before it split. Murayama has always believed in quality, content and promoting young staff to learn the ropes. He isn't that sales-oriented. Which is admirable in a way - but in the industry today, sales are paramount. So hopefully Murayama can keep Madhouse afloat somehow. I'd hate to think Madhouse would go under - there are a good source of alternate/not-so-mainstream content in general.
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