Disney To Buy Marvel for $4 Billion

Robin The Boy Wonder · Disney To Buy Marvel for $4 Billion

You may want to read that headline again. Rub your eyes, wipe away the sleep and take a long gulp of your coffee, and then... read that headline again.

The Walt Disney Company has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc. for an approximate sum of $4 billion in a stock and cash transaction, following today's earlier announcement from both companies.

Both companies has issued statements commenting upon the benefits the deal will offer both companies, with Disney's noting that they will be adding Marvel's portfolio of characters to their own. Marvel has essentially commented on the opportunity to expand through Disney.

At least we now know who would win in a fight between Mickey Mouse and Galactus. Whoda thought it would be Mickey...

Reaper

I can see all the financial benefits for Marvel with this deal and as long as Disney sticks to the fence and doesn't start saying 'Couldn't Wolverine romance one of the Princesses' I'll be happy. How long they'll keep their fingers out no one can say but there does seem something very wrong with saying Walt Disney Presents..... Weapon X :S

Robin The Boy Wonder

Think of the possibilities:

Ultimate Disney - Mickey Mouse is a WWII veteran who is shunted into the present day, forced into combat against the evil Donald Duck, all the while mourning his now-90 year old love, Minnie. Watch Mickey kill terrorists!!! Co-starring Wolverine!!!

Dark Goofy - When Uncle Scrooge becomes President, he creates his very own team of enforcers - led by Goofy, who is now a murdering, psychotic sadist who steals ice creams from children. Co-starring Wolverine!!!

The All-New, All-Different Huey, Dewey & Louie - Now inserted into Marvel continuity after a Sentry-styled mindwipe, the three little ducks become mutants hell-bent on creating a better world, where ducks and man can live together in peace and harmony. Written by Chris Claremont, the only man who can insert 70 years of continuity into a story where there is none!!! Co-starring Wolverine from Days of Future Past!!!

Reaper

Don't forget the Donald and Howard the duck teamup issue

Robin The Boy Wonder

I wonder how long it will take before that reaches the stores...? I wouldn't be too surprised if one was rushed out before Christmas as a Holiday special.

On a serious note, I wonder how this will affect Marvel in both the short-and-long term? It may barely affect Marvel at all, certainly I doubt anything will change with regard to the ongoing comic book and TPB publishing.

The only real change I foresee going forward concerns the film franchises. Almost certainly, there will now be a concerted effort for any branched-out franchises (i.e. Spider-Man is produced by Sony, X-Men and other X-associated films are with Fox) to return to the Marvel or Disney umbrella, more likely with the end of any contracted deals (I think Fox's X-Men contract will soon be over, hence their plans for Wolverine 2 and X-Men: First Class). There may even be a hand-over from Marvel producing their own films (i.e. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Avengers to name but four) to simply producing them directly as Disney.

I also wonder if this will affect any gaming rights, although I daresay Marvel will continue to negotiate their own contracts.

Reaper

As far as I've read so far the movie contracts will stay with Marvel and they will continue to produce them in house seeing as so far their inhouse films have been better than the vast majority of outsourced features.
They have said that once the contracts run out they will look to bring them back to Marvel which I think would have happened regardless, especially as Marvel are looking to the Avengers film in 2011.

With luck this deal will mean that Marvel have more money to throw at their films and Disney won't stick their fingers in the pie and mess it up, sadly the only way we will find out is the hard way but you can guarantee that if a movie is bad there will be rumblings that Disney were an issue, even if they weren't.

Longshot

I don't think this will affect the comic side either, but what it could be doing to the films could get messy. As Marvel have been putting out their cartoon films this could be affected, plus I hope they don't stick their awe in for the rest of their films too much.

Batmanuel

Reaper:

Robin The Boy Wonder

Disney's acquisition of Marvel may be far from complete; however, that hasn't stopped the following:

Kirby Heirs Notify Marvel & Disney Intent To Reclaim Rights

Essentially, this is similar to the case with Superman recently; however, on this occasion, it's the Kirby estate seeking to establish the copyright to a co-created character. These could include the Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, Captain America (although Joe Simon was also involved in his creation)...