Disney recently announced that it has purchased the Marvel Entertainment group for a whopping $4 billion in cash and stocks. The stable of more than 5000 characters now become the property of Disney including the current favorites who are lighting up screens including Iron Man, X-Men, Captain America,The Avengers and Thor. For now films that are still being made will reside under the watchful eye of Marvel including the Iron Man sequel as well as the yet to be seen Thor, Captain America and Josh Whedon’s Avengers. Existing deals with Hollywood studios such as Paramount will retain distribution whilst Fox has the X-Men franchise and Sony still has the rights to the upcoming Spiderman reboot.
The acquisition has many possibilities for future films with the likes of Pixar being able to use certain characters if the opportunity arises. As Disney also owns ABC television this opens the doors for many of the Marvel characters to feature in television projects. Other benefits of the deal allow the characters to become integrated into Disney’s theme parks which is another reason for the large sum paid.
From the press release, Marvel’s Chief Executive Officer Ike Perlmutter said:
Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses. This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world.
For now all is okay for upcoming projects which fans are waiting for, but is this merger likely to see an end to the creative independence as well as the phasing out or retooling of certain characters in movie projects or in future comics? Only time will tell and we can only hope that it stands to benefit the superhero community at large, though with Disney’s monopoly of so many beloved characters it might spell doom for some and a significant shift in artistic visions for others… what do you think?
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