The Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle may soon be due for renovations. Over five thousand characters from the Marvel Universe could be moving to the Disney camp, as Disney head Robert Iger and Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter announced their plans for the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment by The Walt Disney Company. What this means to shareholders and corporate expense accounts is a topic sure to keep the financial experts busy for awhile.
The basic reasoning (as I attempt to turn what was no doubt thousands of man-hours of wheeling and dealing into a paragraph) seems to be this: Marvel has the stable of vibrant, up-and-coming characters, Superheroes and the like, and the merchandising juggernaut to go with them, while Disney has the firmly established global entertainment infrastructure to plug them into. By ensuring it has the Marvel Universe firmly in hand, Disney not only reaps the rewards of a fantastic, already established world of imagination, it eliminates some competition as well.
Marvel, of course, has exploded in the film-making industry with a string of blockbuster movies and has many more slated for the future, most based on longtime Marvel icons. In fact, the next five Marvel theatrical releases are as of now contracted to Paramount Pictures, meaning that it might be some time before Disney begins to see any financial benefit from that genre. Think Ironman Four, perhaps.
What’s all this worth, you may be asking yourself? Reportedly, somewhere in the vicinity of four billion dollars, give or take.
That’s pretty impressive, when you consider that both of these now giant corporate empires began with a blank piece of paper, and a single human hand holding a pencil.
Marvel Comics
Disney
What Does Disney’s Acquisition of Marvel Mean for Fans? [mtv.com]
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