Monday, August 31, 2009

Marvelous...


Bob Iger has been making the rounds...

To listen to the entire 43 min. 30 sec. audio presentation click here. It's also divided into sections if you wish to listen to just parts.

Here he is talking to Fox Business Channel about the acquisition here.

Actual video of Iger's video announcement can be found over at Stich Kingdom here.

And if you'd like to see what Stan Lee thinks of this deal, click here.

Brady McDonald at the LA Times Blog has more insight as to how the Universal deal affects the Mouse here.

Developing...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

no doubt stans excited. stans excited about everything!

:D

Anonymous said...

Can we expect more comic book postings in the future??

Anonymous said...

To tell you the truth, since the news hit the net, the Marvel fan boys have been the WHINIEST little b****es I have ever encountered. SHH has lost any credibility it had due to its readership alone in this case as far as I'm concerned. They fail to, and nor do they WANT to understand what this all means. At the moment, it's all Marvel R.I.P. and Wolverine with song and dance crap that they're spewing... *sigh*

Stan Lee said...

So much for True Believers.

'nuff said...

Here's something. When all the folks flock to see the new Harry Potter World at Universal, a lot of them will be riding Marvel attractions as well while they're there, and buying Marvel merchandise. So even though WDW might lose a few people to Universal for a while, Disney still gets some of the profit through the Marvel licensing that it now owns.

Doopey said...

I had so much to say about all of this that I had to start my own blog to get it all down. I humbly submit it to all of you. Thanks! http://greendoopey.blogspot.com/

Justin said...

I love Stan Lee. I had the pleasure of attending a lecture that he gave a year ago. It was the most entertaining and memorable lecture that I had ever attended. He is so full of life and energy. He is truly enjoyable to be around.

Anonymous said...

Next in line, Playboy or PlayGirl Franchise.

Mickey Centerfold, PlayMouse Mansion etc...

Sound interesting, doesn't it.

:)

Aaronius Lives! said...

Regarding the rabid Marvel and Disney fans, I find their reaction to the deal to be very unsophisticated, to say the least. Marvel has not been a group of rogue artists taking on the establishment for a long while. Disney has not been a group of artists crafting entertainment for the whole family for a long while. The brand "Disney" and the Disney conglomerate are not the same thing.

These are both massive corporate entities. They both create and distribute product across nearly all ranges of the age spectrum. How is Disney going to make Marvel more "Disney" than Marvel has already made itself? This is, after all, the same company that WITHOUT Disney has put Spidey on spinning electric toothbrushes, put the Hulk on underwear...and so on and so forth. Disney may take their "Disney" branded products and place them in the family friendly niche, but Disney also markets Miramax films, suburban infidelity and homicide on Desperate Housewives and the rest. Marvel, in this case, is actually less sophisticated and less developed than Disney, marketing the same Spider-Man on the toothbrush that's in the sometimes violent and sexual comic.

We should all start looking at Disney-the-conglomerate as a large clearinghouse of intellectual content. Some of that content includes characters, scripts and ideas that fall under the family-friendly "Disney" brand. Some of that falls under the male-action banners of Marvel and Bruckheimer. Some of it falls in the realm of very adult fare, like Touchstone, some of ABC's programs, and Miramax. Taken from that perspective, it's clear to see that Disney and "Disney" are not one and the same.

I expect the Marvel deal to unfold in three phases. The first phase involves honoring existing licensing deals with both Universal Orlando and every Hollywood studio with a stake in a lead Marvel franchise, with Disney/Marvel acting as both brand police and supportive "cousin," making sure that their intellectual property isn't mismanaged, and using their vast global marketing reach to make sure that their intellectual property remians popular and profitable. I expect that phase to take about 5-10 years.

In phase 2, Disney/Marvel will begin to seek ways out of their existing agreements, as well as making those companies that want to maintain those agreements to see them as toxic. Here's two examples. Sony has the right to release Spider-Man live action movies for as long as it wants to. Well, let's say that Disney pairs up Marvel and Pixar to relaunch Spider as a premium animated film franchise. Disney wins either way: they get cash from both sides of the deal. Sony doesn't. The new, fresh take on Spidey is bound to decrease revenue from the Tobey variant.

Or look at Universal Orlando's Island of Adventure. At some point, Disney is going to want Spidey, the X-Men, Dock Ock and the rest to reside in Walt Disney World. So, they aren't going to allow IOA to create new rides based on their characters. Hulk will age. Spidey will age. The horrid Storm ride and the land itself will age. Furthermore, I'm not certain as to how the licensing works regarding Marvel-charater based toys, shirts and plushes. I'm sure Disney could (and will) figure out a way to make this park Marvel in three rides only. [Arguably, it's the largest mistake of the Universal Orlando park model: they basically own none of the intellectual product.] Universal will find another franchise to license (ideally, DC from Warners, once the Godforsaken SixFlags goes under.)

Phase 3 involves bringing the full force of Disney marketing, synergy and access to their clearinghouse of intellectual property to bear. And that's gonna be awesome. Scary (remember when we had anti-trust laws that didn't allow this level of control over the media?) But awesome.

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