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

[sir clinksalot]

The Associated Press: Disney to buy comic book powerhouse Marvel for $4B

LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Co. said Monday it is acquiring Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E.
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including favorites such as the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee.

Disney said Marvel shareholders will receive $30 per share in cash, plus 0.745 Disney shares for every Marvel share they own. That values each Marvel share at $50 based on Friday's closing stock prices.

Marvel shares jumped $10.09, or 26 percent, to $48.74 in trading before the market opened. Disney shares fell 70 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $26.14.
Disney said the boards of both companies have approved the transaction, but it will require an antitrust review and the approval of Marvel shareholders.

Of course, it's never too early to speculate what this means for the Disney parks and what it could possibly mean to Marvel themed rides at other parks like Islands of Adventure. I'm sure that rides like the "Amazing Adventures of Spiderman" have an agreement to keep the character theming in the ride, but it could effect the walk-around characters.

As far as which parks this could possibly effect most, my guess would be Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida, Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim and possibly Walt Disney Studios in Paris.

Aside from the parks, having the Marvel empire and their on-going franchises in theatres under the Disney umbrella as well as yet another franchise to support at events like Comic-Con can be nothing but a good thing.

Can't wait to see Stan Lee in a cameo role in Pirates 4.

Read more about Disney and Marvel in MiceChat's Marvel Entertainment section: http://micechat.com/forums/marvel-entertainment/

[mousechild]

Just wading through all the contracts of the more popular characters will take a long time. There are so many licensing deals for so many of those characters who knows what they will be able to do. And Marvel doesn't have much of a film library since they only started producing films based on their characters last year. Up until them they just licensed the rights. They paid over a 25% premium for the company so they must be planning on exploiting the characters. Now the question how much of that exploitation will occur in the current parks?

[sir clinksalot]

I'm gonna say quite a lot MC, but your right, probably not for awhile. You don't pay $4B for something and NOT exploit it.

[OC2Epcot]

This should be interesting to see what they do with the characters.

[Joe User 99]

More interested to see how this affects the Universal Studios parks, with things like:
The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man
Incredible Hulk Coaster
Doctor Doom's Fearfall
etc.

[sir clinksalot]

The Themeing for Hulk and Dr. Doom would be easy to remove/replace. It's the Spiderman ride that's gonna be the tough one. It's an absolutely AMAZING ride and I would really hate to see it go. (Of course, this is again assuming that Universal doesn't have some lifetime contract for the themeing of the rides with no way for Disney to break it)

That said, if Universal isn't going to build Spiderman at USH, what's to say we can't get one at DCA???

[stitchon]

Wow... this is COMPLETELY out of left field, and a seriously exciting prospect. Hopefully Disney takes care of them.

[Indiana Joel]

This should be interesting to see what they do with the characters.

Spider-Man the musical! ... oh, wait...

[knittingknerd]

Does this mean we get a Wolverine face character at Disneyland? Because I'd be really excited to pose with him. Also what does this mean comic wise and character design wise? Disney's a family company and some of the females (okay a good chunk) of the females in Marvel's comic books dress really seductively... Would Disney change that to be more "family friendly"? Wondering what this means for the funny books.

[lazyboy97O]

In terms of the parks, I see this as a brilliant way to possibly capitalize on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I would assume the deal for Marvel to be at Universal parks is for some lengthy time, but includes continued payments to Marvel. Disney will now make money off of renewed focus on Islands of Adventure and Universals parks that are under construction.

[vfire]

The New York Times article adds that Marvel characters will be added to Disney parks. I just hope they don't add them to DL, I don't see where they could possibly fit with the existing themes. DCA would be fine however.

[Mr Wiggins]

The New York Times article adds that Marvel characters will be added to Disney parks. I just hope they don't add them to DL, I don't see where they could possibly fit with the existing themes. DCA would be fine however.

The Disney execs who had no problem putting Pixar toons in Tomorrowland won't have any problem putting Marvel characters in Disneyland -- especially when they've paid four big ones for 'em.

Just watch.

[Joe User 99]

The Themeing for Hulk and Dr. Doom would be easy to remove/replace. It's the Spiderman ride that's gonna be the tough one. It's an absolutely AMAZING ride and I would really hate to see it go. (Of course, this is again assuming that Universal doesn't have some lifetime contract for the themeing of the rides with no way for Disney to break it)

That said, if Universal isn't going to build Spiderman at USH, what's to say we can't get one at DCA???

Also, while it may be easy for Universal to replace, if forced to, even if Disney didn't make them; And there may be some unknown lifetime agreement on the themeing of the ride, would Universal really WANT to keep the themeing of a competitor? Especially if it meant money going into the competitor's pocket? Now, granted, most people wouldn't realize that anything had changed, but you can be sure the higher ups would.

[CL_CooledCoyote]

Are 'The Princess and the Frog' animators going to try and sneek in the Swamp Thing in the bayou now?

[Fashion Biff]

So sounds like they have a plan for the strawberry field now.