Spiderman and Hulk move into Fantasyland (Disney to buy Marvel for $4 Billion)

[Coheteboy]

How did you guys feel when you found out that Disney owns the Power Rangers?

"What?! they own the power rangers?!"

This is like that... but oh loads better.


Except for the Punisher movies, they can leave those.

[Queentitania19]

Just because they honor the terms of the contract doesn't mean that they have to renew it. It may take a few years but eventually they have the opportunity to utterly shaft Universal.

[MagicWDI]

Agreed, Marvel to me just isnt up the Disney road for me. Disney is so family orientated, based on magic and imagination, with good clean fun.

i don't think adding them to the Disney line-up is good for the Disney image.
will disney make profit? YES, but im afraid the people in charge are thinking about how to make big bucks more than the quality and image of disney, i personally dont think that this is the sorta thing is what Walt would like.

Hey, i may be wrong so don't be mad at me.

Disney delivered to us some family hits as Pulp Fiction and the two Kill Bill movies. Just look at the Miramax library of films and see how many of those are appropriate for the whole family.

What I am saying is the Disney name may be family friendly, but the business of Disney is purely an entertainment company, creating and delivering stories for all different ages, including movies and content targeting mature audiences. The scale may favor family friendly, but that doesn't leave out the other types of entertainment. Disney has released far worse content than Marvel, which only targets young adults and teens.

[rob3gd]

First yay grammar! Second I agree with you, but no one is saying that the next Disney Princess is going to be Rogue or Scarlet Witch from X-men. In theory they're a business trying to make money in a difficult economy. Because Disney is so greatly ingrained in so many of our childhoods and heck even our grown up lives I think that we all get a little bit passionate about what they should or shouldn't do. I think everyone, even fancy new giants will take notice if Cyclops starts showing up in the new mystery Winnie the Pooh and Tigger show (what's that show called?) trying to help solve the mystery of the lost sandwich or Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana is suddenly in the new Spiderman comic defeat the Vulture. Disney will get a lot of crap for that if they do try it, negative imaging. But as long as they're smart about this whole thing there's a lot of money to be had. I think comic books and their characters have become mainstream as of late and very profitable. Certain companies :::cough cough Fox cough::: have wrecked some stories, so it would be in Disney's best interests to stay true to the characters and really find good people to make good superhero movies. This means keeping Tim Story away from Fantastic Four, no Punisher with John Travolta, or the oddness of Daredevil (I can't even figure out what was wrong with that movie. I want to say Ben Affleck, but I like him).

You are so right and to actually think about it, Touchstone pictures is an alternative film label by the Walt Disney Company. It has more mature movies for adults and released R-rated films. it wouldn't look right for a R-rated film to debut under the Disney label, now that would spark outrage. maybe Disney is just going to own the rights to the movies and comic book, ext. I'm pretty sure they will make a few adjustments but only time can tell. I truly don't believe that they are willing to put these characters in the parks but we will see

[PanTheMan]

If i start seeing Spiderman and Wolverine walking around DL.... I think I'm going to puke.

[knittingknerd]

If i start seeing Spiderman and Wolverine walking around DL.... I think I'm going to puke.

If I see Wolverine or... hmmm oh Deadpool? walking around the parks I may become one of those crazy people that chase after Jack Sparrow.

[Queentitania19]

If you read the updates on Niki Finke's blog you know that the Universal people are freaking out right now. No one is getting sleep over there tonight.

Edit: Apparently even though they get to keep the characters they already use there is no definition of what "usage" will determine what characters they keep.

[Coheteboy]

Tune into Conan O'Brien tonite to find out which Disney / Marvel mash up you can expect to see. (during his monologue)

[Barbossa]

I already spotted Hulk smashing the Club Penguin office here in town.

[sir clinksalot]

Even without Spiderman, Hulk and Dr. Doom there are still PLENTY of theme-park opportunities in FL.

What X-Men attraction are they talking about at IOA BTW???

[captainZachsparrow]

Overall its a great move IMO. I can see why Marvel fans are concerned that their favorite heroes would get diluted into more family-friendly fare, being a Marvel fan myself. But I think its important to consider a few points:

• Marvel would never enter discussions of such a move without making it clear that their properties are not to be altered in any major way (i.e. dilution). See their decision to make their own films as proof of dedication to their heroes.
• Marvel and Disney are both aware of their extremely vocal fanbases, must surely realize how many people are fans of both, and are therefore unlikely to make any stupid decisions that would cause fan outcry.
• Such an outcry would cause more trouble than Disney wants to deal with, considering how much money is being spent on the DCA renovation. With the additional cost of this deal, Disney knows it can't screw it up; the result of such a screw-up would be disastrous for them.

Ultimately this is an exciting line to add for boys. Girls have Disney Princesses and Disney Fairies. Boys now have Marvel characters in addition to Peter Pan and Aladdin.

Personally I'm hoping the eventual Third Gate will be a Heroes 'n Villains park based on Disney villains and (now) Marvel heroes. That way you can interchange all villains and heroes, Disney or Marvel, based on rotating attractions at each park.

[BigThunder]

Wow. Amazing news, and many great, thoughtful posts from everyone.

First thing I did when I heard this? Smacked myself in the forehead (hard) for selling my Marvel stock last year. My second thought? But of course. This may be a brilliant business move on the part of Bob Iger. What Disney is buying for their 4 billion is the extremely lucrative 12-18 year-old male demographic. Ka-ching. Think about it. They've got the little girls sewn up with Hanna Montana, princesses and pixies and now they've got the adolescent boys too. This is a big, big deal and will mean big, big profits for Disney.

Star Wars, Pirates, and now, Spiderman. Little boys will be in heaven.

Don't know if we will be seeing any Disney Park tie-ins for a while, but you better believe there are plans on the table.

As for who they might pick-up next, Dreamworks is for sale but doesn't really have anything that Disney wants or needs (other than to make them go away), Lucasfilm is not for sale (that we know of) but is full of things that Disney wants. Badly. George is getting older and wants his franchise taken care of. A Disney-Lucas deal would not surprise me at all within the next 5-8 years.

But I've been wrong before.

[Squidgit]

And yet another Vinylmation series is born.

[disneyfann121]

Not really. Most of his classics were borrowed from others.

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan.... the list is endless...

But he made them better. Why can't Disney continue this tradition?

Sure, I have no problem with what Walt did. He used fairy tales and literary classics as the basis for creating animation classics. He then used many of his movies as the basis for rides at Disneyland.

What he didn't do is buy up all the rivals he could, for fear that they would steal his thunder. He had competition, and used his resources to outdo them, for the most part. Disney today has the resources to do the same, but they prefer to lazily overpay for the companies that they see as a threat. There's nothing clever or brilliant in trying to buy everyone, and, historically, business mergers and acquisitions have usually been big failures -- especially when you overpay for them.

Don't believe me that Disney paid too much for Marvel? Marvel stock shot up 27% today, while Disney stock went down. 'Nuff said, as they used to say at Marvel Comics...

EDIT: Instead of trying to buy up the world, they could have put that $4 billion into their existing theme parks. With that money, they could make them all jewels, superb assets that would pay dividends for many decades. And they wouldn't be overpaying; it would be worth every penny. Reinvestment is always better than leveraging.

[Coheteboy]

Sure, I have no problem with what Walt did. He used fairy tales and literary classics as the basis for creating animation classics. He then used many of his movies as the basis for rides at Disneyland.

What he didn't do is buy up all the rivals he could, for fear that they would steal his thunder. He had competition, and used his resources to outdo them, for the most part. Disney today has the resources to do the same, but they prefer to lazily overpay for the companies that they see as a threat. There's nothing clever or brilliant in trying to buy everyone, and, historically, business mergers and acquisitions have usually been big failures -- especially when you overpay for them.

Don't believe me that Disney overpaid for Marvel? Marvel stock shot up 27% today, while Disney stock went down. 'Nuff said, as they used to say at Marvel Comics...

EDIT: Instead of trying to buy up the world, they could have put that $4 billion into their existing theme parks. With that money, they could make them all jewels, superb assets that would pay dividends for many decades. And they wouldn't be overpaying; it would be worth every penny. Reinvestment is always better than leveraging.

I think that's the thing though... Marvel isn't a rival. Maybe they can be seen as one in the theme park business, but comics and superheroes is a market that other studios were making a lot of money off of and Disney.... well... they weren't.

DC is owned by Warner Bros. Marvel isn't, but they shop around to Universal, Fox, Paramount, Lionsgate... basically everyone was eating a piece of the pie except for Disney. You can say that Disney just wasn't playing that game at the time. But after the popularity of their Pirates of the Caribbean and the fizzle of Chronicles of Narnia, they wanted something else that is bankable.


If you really look at the output that Disney as a studio does, they really don't put out a lot compared to their rivals. So you can almost say that Disney is doing this to STAY in the game. They're securing themselves a considerable stake in the market in the future.

This is smart business.