Disney to Acquire Marvel Entertainment | Hacker News Reader

Disney to Acquire Marvel Entertainment

corporate.disney.go.com

49 pointswebology37 comments

Superficially this makes sense, as they're both massive IP conglomerates who sell fantasies, but Disney and (American) comic books seem to be going in different directions as of late. The days when comic book consumers were primarily 8 to 13 are long gone, and even for the older tween through high school set Disney is trying to reach as of late, the franchises don't pack the resonance they once did.

What would fit Disney to a freaking T is a shoujo manga publishing house. They could slide that in to transition young ladies from their little princess empire into a lifetime of Disney fandom. (Sort of in the manner of Disney Japan, where Tokyo Disney is a respectable destination for twenty-something girlfriends to go to.)

This has very little to do with comic books. Marvel is now a movie studio that happens to publish comic books as a kind of R&D.

I think you are right Patio except Marvel has been moving away from the core comic audience for a while. My wife teaches 1st grade and the boys are wild for Wolverine. Disney will leverage this acquisition like crazy through cartoons, merch, etc.

Good idea about the Manga, I just don't know how much of that will be a fad. Do many 20 somethings in the US carry on reading it now? Its been 5 or so years since it exploded at book stores so you figure there would be some trend info?

Wait until Pixar gets their hands on some of that material. Probably won't happen, but that could be very cool.

Maybe not directly, but Pixar's Andrew Stanton is starting filming on the PG-13 John Carter of Mars movie later this year with Disney:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carter_of_Mars_(film)

And this is even as Brad Bird is in development on filming 1906 in conjunction with WB. So maybe not Pixar per se, but...

My only real concern with this is that Disney will decide that the more adult titles don't align with their core values.

Garth Ennis' run on the Punisher, for example, is extremely good, and extremely violent by necessity. I have a hard time imagining Disney allowing that to remain as it is.

After I passed my teen years, I'd pretty much written off Marvel for grown-up stories, favoring DC/Vertigo/Dark Horse, etc., as they seemed more willing to service the non-teen crowd. Marvel regained my business when they added their Max and Knights lines, which are pretty much all I'm buying of them lately.

Don't forget that Pulp Fiction was produced while MiraMax was under Disney or just before they acquired them. They do a good job of keeping brands separate.

But they also declined to distribute Kids. Disney has a line, and it's likely before some stuff that Marvel does do.

You're assuming Disney doesn't produce/back adult titles.

Apocalypto comes to mind.

My only real concern with this is that Disney will decide that the more adult titles don't align with their core values.

Disney is a media company, and will make money any which way they can. They will only put mouse ear logos on family friendly stuff, but the worst that'll happen to Marvel properties is that The Avengers will be a Miramax film. (Miramax, virtually synonymous with hard-R movies like Kill Bill, is also a Disney subsidiary.)

Also Disney owns ABC television, ESPN, etc. I don't think "adult" is a problem, just perhaps "adult" content within the Disney brand.

I think this is great for Marvel. Even with their movie success the comic part of the business hasn’t managed to get back into stores in any meaningful way. When I was a kid comics were sold every place you found magazines. Now not so much.

Disney on the other hand has distribution channels that Marvel alone could only dream of.

It’s no secret that the average age of comic fans has pushed into the 20s at this point and if my childhood is any indicator that has a lot to do with comics being completely absent from your average convenience and/or grocery store.

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Why on earth is this relevant here?

javanix, my guess is that there is a big overlap between the hacking community and the comic book fan community. Beyond the superficial commonality there is also the fact that it is a major M&A transaction. For a community focused on start ups it is an interesting reference point. Another way to test if something is on topic might be to ask what would a founder do with this information. With this data point you could come to a couple conclusions:

1. Content does have value - for all the talk about user generated content having an IP library is worth something. You might hire some content specialists rather than work on an open ended CMS.

2. Selling physical goods is smart - A huge portion of Marvel's revenue is based on licensing and huge revenues are attractive. If I were working on a tech startup I might think of ways to produce artifacts to sell in addition to digital services.

There are probably other lessons to be learned as well. Not hacker focused, but certainly useful to start ups.

Of course there is overlap, but seeing as it is a press release this article adds nothing to the general hacker/start-up knowledgebase, and considering the discussion here itself seems mostly centered on what crossovers/new movies are possible, I'm really having a hard time gaining any value from this sort of thing.

This is a smart move for Disney, give them some of the most boy friendly IP to go along with their Princess and Fairy stuff. Disney has a lot of cool technology too so it will be interesting to see how they integrate it all.

Will also be a big poke in the eye for Universal Studios theme parks, they have a lot tied up with Marvel IP. Exciting times for the Marvel Zombie!

We better go ride the coasters one more time before they rename The Incredible Hulk to The Incredible Hank.

Friend of mine on twitter listened in on the conference call, you can see his notes here (posted @11EST, so time sensitive)

http://twitter.com/wood83

Kingdom Hearts X will be insane:

Form a party of Sora, Donald, Wall-E, and Wolverine and watch as Wolverine guts Ursula while Silver Surfer sings 'Under The Sea' with Ariel.

I'm not sure why this was downvoted. Kingdom Hearts is the only easy place that Disney can exploit Marvel characters before 2017, given their outstanding deals with Activision and other publishers.

Is someone downvoting every single comment posted about this story (perhaps because they can't downvote the story itself)? I don't think I've ever seen a story before where every single top-level comment (at the time I write this) had < 1 points.

Don't worry; that kind of behavior gets corrected in minutes.

Is it foolish to invest in a company that is so invested in an ancient 60s catalogue? I look at what they haven't touched for their movies and it seems like all B tier franchises.

Has Marvel created any new IPs the last 5 years that anyone is excited about?

For as much sense as this deal makes, I can't help but feel that the Mouse is starting to subtly acquire all my childhood memories.

On the other hand, I welcome our new mouse overlords.

Yeah, until they start implementing their engineered scarcity on the new IP "Buy this now, before it goes into the Disney vault for 50 years!"

Trevor,

Disney actually stopped that practice when Michael Eisner joined. There is a great book called DisneyWar that gets into all the reasons why. Kind of an interesting "Intrapreneurial" story about looking at a set of assets in relation to new market conditions. A great read for anyone building a business.

Hey, thanks for the book suggestion!

This should be interesting. Imagine the cross over possibilities - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse + X-Men for example: "It's the Mickey Mouse X-Men lair, come inside there's Mutants inside!" and "I think we need a Mousektool! Everyone say "OH XAVIER!!"".

I really hope they don't change the way the films have been going - Iron Man was a perfect example of what's possible. Then again, I hope they nuke the Spider Man franchise from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.

Cmon, Disney own ESPN. Wolverine on Monday Night Football. (Either the US or UK version - it hardly matters).

I didn't know the UK had a Monday Night Football. Well, with X-Men, they'll have a large pool of candidates for that 3rd announcer spot if Gruden gets another coaching gig.

As of a couple of months ago: the new ESPN UK has some rights to Premier League soccer.

I wonder if this will be the death knell for the comics part of the business. As it stands the printed paper part of the business is relatively small compared to licensing, movies, etc. The switch to the mouse will be interesting to watch. A geek era may be coming to a close quickly.

The most surprising thing to me is that go.com still exists...

Even more surprising, ESPN.com is still a subdomain of go.com

Waiting for the new patrons in next week's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

(Rhetorical: how's that hacker news?)

Does this mean that someone will finally get around to making a decent Dr. Strange film?

Finally someone can whoop mickey mouse's ass. He was always such a smug little passive aggressive type :-).

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