Walt Disney to buy Marvel Comics!

WOW, I just read that Disney is going to buy Marvel for 4 BILLION DOLLARS!

325ad wrote:

WOW, I just read that Disney is going to buy Marvel for 4 BILLION DOLLARS!

This signals the end of Universal Studios' themeparks.

The end is Nigh!

'Please don't make me angry Mr Mouse, you won't like me when I'm angry"

X-men of the carribean

This signals the end of Marvel Comics as we know it, thankfully I have always liked DC better.

manny wrote:

This signals the end of Marvel Comics as we know it, thankfully I have always liked DC better.

Oh come-on, you know you're just chompin' at the bit for the inevitable Spider-man / Mickey Mouse / Goofy / Donald Duck / Punisher crossover comic and movie that will come out.

Well, disney didn;t mess up Pixar

I wonder how this will affect future Marvel universe based movies? Marvel has been able to have their properties handled by a variety of movie studios over the years, while DC is basically stuck with Warner Brothers. Looks like in that respect DC and Marvel are on more of an equal footing now.

Wow, in Geek terms this is frickin HUGE. Marvel Comics movin' into the House of Mouse!! Imagine the crossover possibilities. I'm dyin' to see "High School Musical 4: Hannah Montana Vs. The Punisher."

svengo wrote:

I wonder how this will affect future Marvel
universe based movies? Marvel has been able to have their properties
handled by a variety of movie studios over the years, while DC is
basically stuck with Warner Brothers.

DC Comics has been owned by Warner Bros. since the late 70s, that's why all of their characters' movies have come out thru Warner Bros.

Marvel has been farming their characters out to different studios over the years (Spider Man to Sony, Iron Man to Paramount, X-Men to 20th Century Fox, etc.) and from reading the article at the NY times, it looks like they will continue to honor their contracts with those studios, but when they run out then any future films in those series would be under Disney's banner.

Fat Freddy wrote:

svengo wrote:

I wonder how this will affect future Marvel
universe based movies? Marvel has been able to have their properties
handled by a variety of movie studios over the years, while DC is
basically stuck with Warner Brothers.

DC Comics has been owned by Warner Bros. since the late 70s, that's why all of their characters' movies have come out thru Warner Bros.

Yeah I was aware of that, that's why I said that DC is stuck with WB. I just find it interesting that Basically now Marvel and DC are in the future gonna be in the same situation movie-wise. They are both tied to one studio only and all the good and bad things that implies.

What really ticks me off about this is I'm a DC fan. They have a hard enough time catching up to Marvel in sales & influence WITHOUT Disney and DC has been backed by Warner Bros since the '80s!

wow.. im not a comic fan anymore but thats crazy.

So they won't let heavy metal bands play at the 2 house of blues venues that are on their properties but its ok to have comics which are full of violence?

Im confused....

Really? They've banned bands? Odd considering the movies that get put out under their various studios...

I'm seeing Stryper at the HOB in Orlando. But I suppose they aren't seen as a metal band.

I have always prefered DC Comics over Marvel, but Disney is not in the business of comic books, I wonder what that means in terms of the comic book side of the business, or if Disney will simply concentrate on the movie and maybe even create a few cartoon series based on some of the Marvel characters.

You're right, Disney is in this for all of the licensing: movies, TV shows, cartoons, video games, theme park attractions. I'm sure they'll make SOME tweaks to the publishing side, as far as operations go, but creatively, I think they'll stay back for the most part.

They've already said they plan on getting all of the Marvel movies under the Disney umbrella eventually, but given the deals that are already in place, that'll take at least a decade or so to do. Pixar & Marvel have reportedly already had "discussions" as well, which would be really cool and probably produce some of the best Marvel movies yet.

I'm sure Disney Channel and Disney XD will be getting a wave of Marvel cartoons (possibly Marvel live-action tween shows?) within the next few years. I wouldn't be surprised to see some Marvel live-action shows on ABC either.

Then of course, probably most of Disney's tween properties will get their own Marvel titles as well.

Metal Misfit wrote:

Really? They've banned bands? Odd considering the movies that get put out under their various studios...

Yea Machine Head and a couple other ones I forget. It was a while ago.

On Twitter I read that Disney's first act might be to pull the plug on the upcoming Thor movie. I hope this isn't true as Thor has always been one of my favorite superheros of all time.

*fingercrossed* Hopefully the Namor The Submariner movie will get made!!!!

SpectreFate wrote:

*fingercrossed* Hopefully the Namor The Submariner movie will get made!!!!

GOD, no!

Remember that when Disney bought Pixar, it didn't mess up the quality of the work (see UP this year). Of course, the Pixar folks now run all of Disney animation, so maybe they will let the comic book experts work on the comic book properties.

SpectreFate wrote:

I'm seeing Stryper at the HOB in Orlando. But I suppose they aren't seen as a metal band.

Besides, they're squeaky clean and Mom-approved.

jokeriv wrote:

Remember that when Disney bought Pixar, it didn't mess up the quality of the work (see UP this year). Of course, the Pixar folks now run all of Disney animation, so maybe they will let the comic book experts work on the comic book properties.

Disney had no choice but to give Pixar whatever they wanted in order to get them to stay. For a couple of years the Pixar movies were the only films that were making money for'em. When Disney's distribution deal w/Pixar was about to end every other studio in Hollywood was lining up with their checkbooks out to try and lure Pixar away. Disney would've been idiots to let them go.

I hate these takeovers. Hopefully the end result will be positive.

Long time geeks will probably recall that this is not the first time Marvel has been owned by a film studio ... Roger Corman's New World Productions owned'em for a couple of years in the mid to late '80s. Of course, Mickey Mouse has deeper pockets than ole Roger. Haha. When New World hit the skids they sold Marvel to Ronald Perelman (of Revlon Cosmetics fame); then New World went belly up soon afterwards.

That union was Marvel's first attempt at getting into the movie business but the only adaptations that rolled out were cheap-ass low budget crap like a "Captain America" movie that went straight to video, the notoriously bad Dolph Lundgren version of "The Punisher," and the infamous "Fantastic Four" movie that was never released at all.

Cannon Films ('80s home of Chuck Norris) had "Spider-Man" in development as far back as 1985 or so, a director was attached (there was even a script treatment by James Cameron going around) and I think some sets were even built, but the movie never got off the ground. To give you an idea of how long ago this was, a young Charlie Sheen was rumored to play Peter/Spidey in the Cannon version!

spiritoradio wrote:

On Twitter I read that Disney's first act might be to pull the plug on the upcoming Thor movie. I hope this isn't true as Thor has always been one of my favorite superheros of all time.

According to the story on the merger in today's paper, "Thor" is still on track for 2011 release with whichever studio it was booked with (I forget if it was Columbia or Fox) prior to the deal. 20th Century Fox also has two more "X-Men: Origins" movies scheduled for 2010 and '11 (Magneto and a second Wolverine), Sony/Columbia still has "Spider-Man 4" and Viacom/Paramount has two more Iron Man sequels on their slate. Once all of those films are completed I assume those characters' movie licenses will all revert to Disney.