ryuuseipro
New Member
Marvel/DC veteran Marv Wolfman on the acquisition:
http://www.marvwolfman.com/todaysviews.html
http://www.marvwolfman.com/todaysviews.html
THE MOUSE OF IDEAS!
Because I was both the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel as well as one of the two founding editors of Disney Adventures Magazine, I've already gotten numerous phone calls, including one from Forbes Magazine, asking what I think about Disney buying Marvel. The easy answer is - nobody knows. Certainly I don't.
First, the theme parks. As almost everyone knows, Universal's Islands of Adventure park in Florida has a huge Marvel land complete with Marvel stores, rides, attractions and characters. Their Spider-Man attraction is arguably the best theme park ride anywhere. None of us knows how long their contract is for: Is it short term, long term or even perpetual? Without that knowledge we don't know if the Marvel land, and the characters can move from Universal over to Disney Parks. But eventually something is going to happen there; I can't imagine Disney wanting to make things easy for Universal.
Second, the movies. We know Marvel has re-acquired some of their characters, but not all. Do we know how much longer Sony has Spider-Man or 20th Century Fox has X-Men? We certainly know both of those companies are planning new Marvel movies. Disney may be content with getting their percentages or they may want it outright, but we have no idea how long any of those contracts are for, either. I'd venture to guess no matter where the movies wind up, they will probably maintain the same level of quality. As Pirates of the Caribbean has certainly proven, Disney can do solid action films.
Third, there's television. That's actually one of the places I think we can expect to see Marvel material appear. Disney has not been able to put together as successful a boy's network as they have with girls. There has been no boy equivalent to either Hannah Montana or Secret Life of An American Girl. Their current boy's network, which is supposed to have adventure shows, instead has primarily boy oriented sitcoms, but I personally don't believe boys care about those kind of shows the way girls do. Marvel would fit in very well here, providing they get back their contracts from the various networks that currently hold them. Before Disney spent 4 billion dollars, I'm certain they investigated all the properties down to the nth degree. Last time I spent 4 bil, I certainly did.
Publishing. Well, that's the big one, isn't it? At least for us. Actually, only for us. The big ones in reality are movies, TV and video games. One major video game hit can make more money than 95% of all movies. But let's talk comics. What division will that fall under? Publishing? Movies? Consumer Products? Something else? What happens to Marvel Comics will depend on which Disney company it falls under and as of 1:30PM, I don't know the answer to that.
The first question I've been asked is whether they will move Marvel out west. I think there are people out here who are jumping up and down praying for that to happen. While that's always a possibility, off the cuff I would tend to doubt it. The reason I was only with Disney Adventures for 4 1/2 years is that they moved their publishing from LA to New York and I wasn't willing to move back East with them. Then, a few years back, they moved some of that to either White Plains, Mass or Vermont, I forget which right now and have no idea if they've moved elsewhere since. I can almost say with 100% certainty, that they would not move Marvel to the Disney lot. Hell, even Disney Adventures was off lot. Disney TV and direct-to-DVD is not on the lot, either. It's too expensive to be located there. I would assume they'd leave Marvel where it is, although a year or three from now someone could decide to incorporate it into their division and move it to Rhode Island, for all we know. Although I doubt it. Again, it all depends which division Marvel will fall under and who is in charge and how much they want to control Marvel.
Disney can certainly help Marvel in terms of distribution, awareness and sales. They can get Marvel Comics into the parks and over the net better than Marvel can. Disney's Internet presence is much greater than Marvel's. They have resources Marvel does not, and I expect in a year or two we'll start seeing the results of the sale. I think Disney will be a major plus on that side.
In the meantime, I assume they will leave the company as is, at least until they have an idea what they're doing with it. As far as the comics go, hopefully, they will leave Joe Quesada and company where they are and not interfere; they've creatively improved the Marvel Comics. Based on most of their Marvel Studios movies, they seem to have good people there, too. I'm not completely sure it was a wise purchase, but Disney is in the branding/franchise business and the Marvel brand is one of the largest in the world. Of course, everything will change if the Marvel characters fail at whatever Disney has planned.
I have to say I loved working at Disney Adventures. Had they not moved, I would have stayed with them until the magazine was finally cancelled less than a year ago. My wife, Noel, was the Associate Producer of the Tinkerbell direct to DVD for Disney and loved her time there as well. Although you may hear horror stories, it is actually a wonderful place to work. But they don't always know the businesses outside their core business. I hope whoever they put in charge of Marvel knows and understands Marvel. It is very different from Mickey and company, and I'm not talking editorially.
But whatever happens, the comics world has been rocked. As for where it will go... we'll cross out fingers and see.