|Watch Me|My Gallery|My Scraps|My Stats|My Watchers|Journal Creator|



Im sure all of you have heard the news but what the hell, gives me a reason to update.



In a deal that combines two of entertainment's most popular brands, The Walt Disney Company announced its agreement to acquire Marvel Entertainment and its over 5000 characters in a stock and cash transaction. Marvel shareholders will receive $30 and 0.745 Disney shares for each share of stock they own. This brings the total price per share to approximately $50, making the total value of the deal around $4 billion.


Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including Spider-Man, Iron Man and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee.

Analyst David Joyce of Miller Tabak&Co. said the acquisition will help Disney appeal to young men who have flocked to theatres to see Marvel's superheroes in recent years. That contrasts with Disney's recent successes among young women with such fare as “Hannah Montana” and the Jonas Brothers.

Ike Perlmutter, CEO of Marvel, adds:
"Disney is the perfect home for Marvel's fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses. This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney's tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world."

Perlmutter will continue to oversee Marvel's properties and will "work directly with Disney's global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel's properties.

The deal has been approved by each company's board of directors but is still waiting for the approval of Marvel shareholders and anti-trust clearance.

The intersection of these two brands is sure to have a tremendous impact across all fields of entertainment given the recent success of the Marvel brand in movies and video games. It's unlikely that the deal with affect the publishing status of the Paramount movies or Activision games, but the status of the Marvel presence at Universal's theme park is unclear.

Naturally, there are those whose faith in the goodness of the universe is entirely dependent on the continued existence of the Hulk-themed ride at Universal Studios. Compared to that, fears that Peter Parker will find a starring role in the next High School Musical seem, well, silly. Of course, we're more concerned with the impact that this deal will have on the Marvel-branded video games. The smart money says that Disney is unlikely to mess with the profitable model established by Marvel over the last few years, but what are the long term prospects for Disney to intervene to increase profits or take the Marvel license in unexpected directions?

The obvious place to start is the possibility of seeing Marvel characters in future Kingdom Hearts games. While that's an intriguing marketing prospect on the surface, it seems to disgust as many people as it delights. The very idea that Sora, Spider-Man and Scrooge McDuck could all share the same stage in an upcoming video game might seem strange, but that was the same reaction that many gamers had to the potential pairing of Final Fantasy and Disney characters in the original Kingdom Hearts. It's unlikely at this point that Square will commit to enlarging the licensing deals to include Marvel characters but when has Square, Disney or Marvel ever been against the idea profiting by enlarging its target audience?

The real crux of a potential crossover is whether or not Square, Disney and Marvel can find ways for the characters and settings to exist as part of a consistent universe that allows each franchise to express its true identity. Given the different target demographics for Winnie the Pooh and Wolverine, it seems like an insurmountable problem. Then again, the original game never seemed overly preoccupied with drawing a narrative connection between the Final Fantasy and Disney settings, so the possibility definitely exists.

There's more at stake with Activision. The studio has developed a lot of energy and focus with the Marvel properties over the last ten years and really seems to understand how to adapt the Marvel universe to the world of video games. The studio first dove into the world with a series of X-Men action and roleplaying games and has recently achieved a breakout success with X-Men Origins and the massive Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Activision's track record is solid here, and it would be unwise for Disney to take these types of projects to a new studio where developers would be starting over from square one. Fortunately, the studio still has the rights to their games and characters for the next several years and, as long as the successes have grown, it's unlikely that Disney will move the license to a new developer.

The issue then becomes one of licensing. With a roster-heavy game like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, can Disney honor Activision's direction with potential sequels while also sharing out characters for other games? While it's an obvious licensing headache, the currently fractured nature of the license kept heavy-hitters like the Hulk from appearing in the original Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, so there's a huge potential benefit to having a company with the power and resources of Disney behind the marketing negotiations. If the company can find a consistent marketing direction for the characters, which seems more likely now, it can make intelligent decisions about their availability.

A better sense of direction for the licensing of the characters is also likely to streamline the production of Gazillion's massively multiplayer online game, Marvel Universe. Since the presence of all the characters from the canon seems integral to the success of the game, having the weight of Disney at the negotiating table is encouraging. On the other hand, Disney's own experience with its own MMO, 2003's Toontown Online, seems insufficient to tackle the project single-handedly, so finding a development team with a proven track record will be key to the game's eventual success. We have a few clues about this project's existence, but have been unable to confirm how this acquisition might affect development.

Things may be a bit less secure at Sega, which has the rights to develop games based on the movies. The movie franchises will be up for renegotiation much sooner than the deals at Activision or Gazillion. Given the lack of success that some of the more recent movie adaptations, it seems likely that Disney will want to find a new development studio to partner with the new movie studio.

THQ's deal with the Marvel Babies (aka Super Hero Squad) would also seem to have an uncertain future but, in terms of tone, it's likely that Disney will continue its practice of using different brands to target different demographics. Just as Marvel recently created its own separate imprints to appeal to different segments of its fan base, Disney's decision to release more mature games like Turok under its Touchstone division should give gamers some reassurance that, while THQ's kid-themed approach will still have a home, edgy characters like Wolverine aren't likely to be diluted for the sake of mass appeal.

Ultimately, today's announcement raises more questions than it answers but the possible benefits seem to edge out the potential pitfalls, at least in the short term. There are still far too many unknown factors at play, but the financial self-interest of Disney would seem to suggest that it will do as little as possible to deviate from the licensing approach Marvel has developed over the last few years. Whether or not that model holds up over the long term is less sure.

Thoughts? hate it or love it? comment. I can just picture an artwork now..Spider-man, Iron Man, Wolverine, and others walking weakly into the stormy night of Disney world Castle gate whilst an evil giant Mickey Mouse is laughing...

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Website.