Disney announced today that they have made an agreement to acquire Marvel Entertainment Incorporated in a deal worth 4 Billion in stock and cash.According to the release:
"This transaction combines Marvel's strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney's creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories," said Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. "Ike Perlmutter and his team have done an impressive job of nurturing these properties and have created significant value. We are pleased to bring this talent and these great assets to Disney."
"We believe that adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation," Iger said.
"Disney is the perfect home for Marvel's fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses," said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel's Chief Executive Officer. "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."
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5,000 Marvel characters. Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney's global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel's properties."
"For Disney, movies like those should help address a key area of concern among investors: How it can better reach more young males.
"This helps give Disney more important exposure to the young male demographic that they have sort of lost some ground with in recent years," said David Joyce, an analyst with Miller Tabak & Co.
Disney Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs told Reuters on Monday, "(Marvel's) audience is surprisingly broad. It transcends gender and age and has real potential worldwide. They skew a little more toward boys than many of our properties."
Though I wonder how much Stan Lee gets from this?
Excelsior!
1 comments:
Two words:
Sell Out.
This rings of pure greed. I haven't seen the details, but think of how this affects the fans.
Are we going to see 'Disney-fied' watered down Marvel classics?
Not sure I want to deal with that. What's the most edgy thing Disney has done??? Their first PG movie was 'The Black Hole' (Remember that?)
Marvel rose from the ashes and became solid and true to their story lines. Something Hollywood wasn't able to do on their own.
One thing to be sure: Be ready for even more merchandising.
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