DIZNI KUPUJE MARVEL!?

[zakk]

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/disney-to-buy-marvel-for-4-billion/

Disney to Buy Marvel for $4 Billion
August 31, 2009, 9:18 am
Marvel

Mickey Mouse, meet Iron Man.

Walt Disney Company said Monday it has agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment, the storied comic book company that owns the rights to such popular characters as Spider-Man and and the Fantastic Four, in a cash and stock deal it valued at $4 billion. The deal comes more than 10 years after Marvel was at the center of a bruising and highly public takeover battle between two feisty financiers.

Shareholders at Marvel will need to approve the transaction, which boards of directors at both companies have already approved.

"We believe that adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation," Robert Iger, Disney's chief executive, said in a statement announcing the deal.

"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."

Marvel Entertainment began in 1939 as a comic book company called Timely Publications. It has since become one of the largest character-based franchises in the world, with a proprietary library of over 5,000 characters including The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, The Avengers and the X-Men.

Ronald O. Perelman acquired Marvel in 1989 but the company filed for bankruptcy protection eight years later, setting off a drawn-out takeover feud between him and a group of bondholders led by Carl C. Icahn. In the end, Mr. Perlmutter gained control of Marvel through his company, ToyBiz, and Mr. Perlmutter owns about 37 percent of Marvel's stock, according to Marvel's latest annual filing with regulators.

Marvel now has three main divisions: a licensing arm, which sells the right for other companies to use their proprietary characters in movies and promotions; a publishing arm, which makes the comics and books based on their characters; and a film production unit, which makes movies for some of their characters.

The film production unit is a new venture for Marvel. The company originally licensed its characters to the big movie studios, but beginning in 2005, Marvel entered the movie-making business with the construction of a $525 million film facility.

The first two movies Marvel produced were "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" in summer 2008. The company is currently developing four films for release in 2010 and 2011: "Iron Man 2," "Thor," "The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers."

[Meho Krljic]

Ja se već izvesno vreme pitam kako to da ih do sada nisu kupili. Oni ili Sony ili neko... No, Sony ima svoje finansijske probleme at the moment, takoda, Dizni ima smisla.

[DušMan]

Joe Quesada, Marvel Comics [via Twitter]: "G' morning, Marvel U! Welcome to this moment in history. Everyone relax, this is incredible news and all is well in the Marvel U." "Everybody take a deep breath, all your favorite comics remain unchanged and Tom Brevoort remains grouchy." "If you're familiar with the Disney/Pixar relationship, then you'll understand why this is a new dawn for Marvel and the comics industry." "It feels like Christmas morning."

Warren Ellis, Marvel Comics [via Twitter]: "so I got this phone call from Joe Quesada and it was just the sound of him rubbing himself with money and now I am confused"

CB Cebulski, Marvel Comics [via Twitter]: "From all I've heard up here these past three hours, Disney merging with Marvel is a VERY GOOD thing for us. Very positive about it all!"

Andy Diggle, Marvel Comics [via Twitter]: "Let's remember Disney owned Miramax when they made films like RESERVOIR DOGS, PULP FICTION, TRAINSPOTTING and THE CROW."

Gerry Conway, DC Comics [via Twitter]: "Disney is a huge enterprise, Marvel is a small one; Disney will swallow Marvel's creative culture, whatever's left of it."

Jamal Igle, DC Comics [via Twitter]: "To Marvel.. good luck with the new ownership. You'll soon find out why they're referred to in animation circles as Mouseschwitz."

Cully Hamner, DC Comics: "Interesting.  I'm obviously a DC guy these days, so this doesn't immediately ordirectly affect me.  But I'm curious to see what effect, if at all, this has on the publishing side of things—how they deal with talent, how they spend their money, etc.  Disney is legendarily tightfisted with money, but at the same time, Disney made a wise decision in having John Lasseter oversee all of Disney Animation.  This is a wait-and-see game for now.  Mainly, I just hope none of my many friends who work for Marvel get screwed...!"

J.M. DeMatteis, Ardden Entertainment: "I think the first reaction from most of us who work in the business is, 'How will this impact the comics?'  But I think (and, really, in the end, what do I know?) from Disney's POV it's all about movie and TV franchises.  If you opened Variety this morning, you didn't see a comic book image accompanying the article, you saw Robert Downey as Iron Man....Whatever happens, watching this unfold is going to be fascinating."

Bryan Lee O'Malley, Oni Press [via Twitter]: "let me be the first to say, in 50 years Disney will DEFINITELY acquire Scott Pilgrim"

Holly Golightly, Jim Balent Studios: "I'm thrilled to have more entertainment in our lives!!"

Raven Gregory, Zenescope Entertainment: "A very interesting turn of events.  I almost feel like I'm in a M. Night Shyamalan movie waiting to see what the twist at the end is.  Might be good, might be really bad.  We'll see."

[cutter]

imedžn d posibilitiz!

[Meho Krljic]

Ovo što DeMatteis kaže mi je najbliže pameti. Stripovi su na udaljenom trećem mestu po obrtu novca (i prihodima) u Marvelovoj konstrukciji (iza filmova i licenciranja za igračke i drugi merćandajs) i generalno obrću toliko malo para da ne verujem da će Dizni njima preterano mnogo i da se bakće... A za filmove mene zabole oko tako da...

[Meho Krljic]

Još bolje, koliko vidim Dizni ne namerava da uopšte dira ugovore koje Marvel trenutno ima sa filmskim studijima za naslvoe koji tek treba da se pojave. Tek kad ugovori budu pri kraju, kaže Dizni, svaki od njih će individualno da se proceni, treba li ga obnavljati, prekidati ili već nešto treće...

Uzgred, treba se setiti da Marvel poseduje i ABC a koji prave Grey's Anatomy i Lost, čisto da se stekne utisak.

Kurt Busiek ima vrlo razumnu reakciju:

"I see the fan community already salivating over Pixar X-Men (has Pixar done any adaptations, guys?) or dreading Hannah Montana joining the Avengers," said comics writer Kurt Busiek. "Or hoping that Disney will immediately fire Joe Quesada and reinstate the kind of comics they use to love back when Disney had no interest in Marvel. Or dreading that Disney will 'wimpify' Marvel. Or exulting that now Marvel can be like Vertigo and publish comics that don't make money, because they can spend Disney's money without expecting to make a profit. And a lot of other things that don't seem likely, either.

"My reaction: This will change things. Whether it'll change things in a good way, in a bad way or (most likely) in a mixture of both, it'll change things," he said. "How? No way to tell yet, so there's not much point in drawing conclusions of any kind. I hope we have Roger Langridge "Muppet Show" comics for a long time to come, though.

"I do recall, back in the '80s, people at Marvel used to say they wanted to be Disney for older audiences. Well, I guess now they are," Busiek said. "What that means, though, remains to be seen."

Ono što jeste interesantno pitanje, a vezano je za stripove tiče se činjenice da Dizni trenutno ima ugovor (vrlo svež, sklopljen ove godine) sa Boom! Comics za publikovanje stripova po njihovim licencama. Pitam se da li će sad kad poseduju najuspešniju izdavačku kuću u Americi tu nešto da se menja.

S druge strane, zaista, crtani film koji bi napravio Pixar a ticao bi se Marvelovih superheroja??? Spajdermen ili X-Men (ili Fantastic Four) koje bi režirao Brad Bird??? Hel jea.

[zakk]

Pa, ako odigraju pametno, može samo dobro da bude i jednima i drugima i nama. Ali, jelte, to uopšte nije malo "ako".

[Meho Krljic]

Mislm da će moja ovonedeljna kolumna na UPPS-u da se bavi ovime i analizom paranoje koja hvata sve Marvel fanove (a za koju vidim malo razloga). Još jedan fun fact u međuvremenu: Dizni je i većinski vlasnik Vivid Entertainmenta. Da, da.

A da se ne opustimo, evo linkova za Diznijeve mračne biznis prakse vezane za sweatshopove:

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/SweatShops/SweatShops.html

[ridiculus]

Mislm da će moja ovonedeljna kolumna na UPPS-u da se bavi ovime i analizom paranoje koja hvata sve Marvel fanove (a za koju vidim malo razloga). Još jedan fun fact u međuvremenu: Dizni je i većinski vlasnik Vivid Entertainmenta. Da, da.

Vivid Entertainment i jeste Dizni porno-biznisa, tako da...ima smisla.

[Meho Krljic]

Ma to u stvari nije istina iako je sjajan podatak. Neko je to negde napisao i stvarno zvuči ubedljivo, ali sad sam proveravao zbogradi moje kolumne i naravno da to nije tačno. Avaj.

[zakk]

Ali zato drže kink.com 

[Meho Krljic]

Evo i pominjane kolumne.

[zakk]

Rightsizing

[zakk]

The "Disney Buys Marvel" FAQ

No, I am not going to be writing Disney comics.

Fairly fucking obviously.

[Meho Krljic]

Videćemo još za to. Onomad se onoliko kurčio da neće da piše ni superheroje. Onda je imao "the year of whoring" tokom koje je pisao superheroje za Marvel jer su mu ponudili mnogo para. Sad pored Marvela piše superherojske stripove i za Avatar, gde ga na to niko ni ne tera da radi a i ne plaćaju ga previše... Ne bi me iznenadilo da vidimo Ellisovog Paju patka za koju godinu.

[zakk]

Ellis je bradata drolja, to stoji

A njegov Paja bi ispao Howard the Duck, pa nema smisla

Ali napisao bi dobar skript za Mikija vs Fantomska Mrlja.

[Le Samourai]

Ja mislim da je Elis rodjen da pishe Dizni stripove.

[marlowe]

Ne postoji Fantomska, vec samo Crna Mrlja.

[zakk]

Ja ga vala znam i kao Fantomsku...

[Meho Krljic]

Prvi strip koji njega featuruje u naslovu ima "Phantom Blot" ali mislim da je u pitanju "Fantom Mrlja" a ne "Fantomska Mrlja".