To move from the general to the specific, this appears to guarantee upheaval at Universal Studios Orlando. Universal has an entire theme park section devoted to Marvel comics and features a Spider-Man ride and Universal's flagship Hulk coaster! It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
PING!
Di$ney = Mediocrity. Soon we’ll have Spiderman / Hannah Montana crossovers.
Stan Lee hits another payday!
Expect a gay superhero............
Great. Now we’ll get more gay superheroes.
And Disneyworld sure could use an update. They should rename “Tomorrowland” to “Yesterdayland.”
Disney has done well, so far, but it seems to me that they’ve lost their brand image. So far, they’ve managed to deal with that. But I must say that, when I was a boy long ago, I collected both Disney comics and Marvell comics, but I thought of them as two extremely different things.
To get back to the $2 billion, that may be a bridge too far in this collapsing financial situation.
Oh joy, Mickey Mouse Man or the X-Ducklings!
Does this mean we will never ever have to hear from the idiocy of Stan Lee ever ever again?
(I wonder what this does for the rides at islands of adventure over at universal. They were all marvel with the hulk roler coaster, the spiderman ride, the marvel super heroes wandering around...)
Given disney’s penchant for “sure things” perhaps this will start to eliminate the flop factor in their publications.
i actually toyed with the idea of buying shares of marvel back in the mid 90s
had i done so i probably would not have to work right about now
And comic-book enthusiasts the world over have a collective coronary....
Yes, Marvel and Disney are (mostly) respected companies, but I see this as nothing but bad for Marvel.
They’re probably popping champagne corks over at DC.
regarding your universal comment.
I wonder if this is some kind of manuver to do a same as.
Remember when Universal opened their park, Disney rushed and opened MGM studioes, now hollywood studios.
Now disney has a “me too” with the marvel heros so it does not matter that universal has spiderman because hollywood studios will have spiderman too. I can see the mass ads now.
Where should a family spend their hard earned money. At one park where the kids only get 1/2 of the menu of characters or at a disney park were all the characters can be found.
Disney is just looking for a generic fit. Also remember disney has essentially ignored boys. It is all princesses and they they throw in pirates as an afterthought.
They have to do SOMETHING to balance out the park or DisneyWorld, and the Disney brand, will turn into a sissified spoiled little girl buy me this daddy buy be that daddy park.
This isn’t about buying a comics publisher, it’s about buying their trademarked characters to license as toys, rides, games, and movies.
And Disney Corp’s empire just got a bit larger. Let’s extend copyright another 50 years so they can own all of America’s pop cultural icons.
Ping for later
Great point. Marvel was already trending leftie in the mags, but the movies had remained fairly meat-and-potatoes. But Disney? Ugh. What used to be a byeword for quality and family-friendly movies has become a haven for homosexual-friendly messages. So, I guess we’ll see the Hulk “come out” and marry the Thing.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
About 10 or so years ago Marvel was on the rocks. It literally took out around a $1 billion loan to bet on movies being more profitable than comic books. Looks like it worked out well.
If their movies had flopped, Marvel would have gone bust a long time ago.
I believe Stan has a lifetime contract that pays him a nice stipend if I’m not mistaken.
But if he had retained ownership of all the characters he created in whole or part, he’d be as rich as Bill Gates.
"This is a great fit for us," Disney boss Bob Iger told CNBC this morning. He said the acquisition was a way to attract more boys.