The House of Mouse Buys the House of Ideas...

"First Disney/Marvel collaboration: Hannah Montana refuses to reveal secret identity, she goes to war with Iron Man. Iron Man wins easily." -- Brian Lynch

Some random, somewhat rambling thoughts about what may be the biggest film-related news story of the year...

Chud's Devin Faraci did a solid play-by-play bit as it was happening this morning. First of all, at this point, any and all licensing and distribution deals that Marvel has in place with Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate, Fox, or the like will be honored until their expiration dates (no wonder Sony has been desperate to get the next dozen Spider-Man movies into development). What is obvious is that Marvel either didn't trust itself as a stand-alone movie studio, or they were financially shaky enough to be in total peril should any of their big films (like Thor) out and out tank. Latching onto any major studio was a smart move for them, as spending Iron Man-type money for B-level projects (like Ant Man) was a recipe for eventual disaster. Having one of the big studios provides a cushion for the occasional whiff. I've chided Marvel in the past for this or that boneheaded play (forcing Sam Raimi to put Venom in Spider-Man 3, recutting Daredevil, spending $160 million of their own money on The Incredible Hulk and then gutting said film), but this new deal gives them the safety of actually being able to survive a truly awful situation (such as an out and out flop like Warner Bros/DC Comics Catwoman). From an artistic point-of-view, at the very least the idea of a Marvel/Pixar collaboration is beyond exciting (put any Marvel team with the Incredibles). And while Warner was never smart enough to let the DCAU gang (Bruce Timm/Paul Dini/Alan Burnett/etc) write the live-action DC scripts, Marvel doesn't have to make the same mistake. Free tip - let the Pixar gang write the scripts for the live-action superhero movies.

For Disney, the movie studio is just icing on the cake (which may or may not be good news for said studio wanting to fund exceptionally expensive superhero epics). The real money will come from the licensing opportunities. They will have the ability to infuse their theme parks with Marvel characters if they so choose. Or they can open a completely new Marvel Comics theme park if they wish. The possibilities are endless, especially once the other deals with the other studios expire (expect Fox to greenlight a flurry of sequels and reboots of existing properties). This also clears up any number of rights issues for the various Marvel Comics-based cartoons that the Disney-owned Saban put out on the 1990s. I'm guessing that the out-of-nowhere DVD release of the 1990s X-Men cartoon was some kind of peace offering or test run (at least this means that Disney DVD will actually release the whole series). So along with everything else, Disney gets clear sailing to release about a dozen animated series collections onto DVD as a bonus. I'm guessing the reason that Disney bought Marvel is the simplest one... they want the merchandising bonanza that comes from Marvel's flagship characters.

A big question is of course how this will affect the actual Marvel Comics content. This pretty much destroys any chances of any R-rated Marvel movies in the future (however slim those chances were in the first place), since Walt Disney only started putting out PG-13 films under their Walt Disney banner with the first Pirates of the Caribbean film in July, 2003. I'm sure the recently resurrected Touchtone distribution label (used by Disney to release R-rated comedies and action films) may play a role, but we'll see. I don't think Disney is dumb enough to meddle with the comic book material or the various spin-offs (such as video games), but that's always a danger. Because now that Disney owns Marvel, the various pro-censorship Focus On The Family-type groups can send out press releases touting some horrifying violence that happened on page 12 of last week's issue of The Punisher or last month's issue of Ultimate Avengers. Come what may, the acquisition of 5,000 often violent, occasionally sexualized comic book characters just makes Disney an even easier target for such rubbish. We'll see if Disney reacts to inevitable cheap shots. I'd like to think that Disney didn't buy Marvel for $4 billion just so they could tinker with it. On the other hand, will Disney allow the flagship characters for their new sub-company to run around in four-color land swearing, drinking, killing, and screwing if they think it will inversely affect their ability to sell t-shirts of said characters to people already suspicious of the 'Disney agenda'? Or worse yet, will Disney worry that Wolverine killing someone in a comic book might somehow affect the sale of a Mickey Mouse t-shirt? I'd love to be proven merely paranoid about this, but it'll be something to watch for over the next few years.

But overall this seems like a solid play for Marvel and Disney, and a huge blow to the allegedly cash-strapped Paramount (they also recently lost Dreamworks to Disney). The Mouse House gets the rights to pretty much every Marvel character, and the other studios may have to come to Disney for co-financing if costs for their characters' films can't be controlled (does Sony has a $1 billion or so lying around for the next three Spider-Man films?). This gives Disney a boatload of ready-made franchises to supplement the (nearly dead) Pirates of the Caribbean series and the National Treasure series. And as long as Disney doesn't meddle with the content, Marvel now has the cushion to build its movie empire as well as the ability to (theoretically) lose money year after year on the actual comics, Ala DC Comics and Warner Bros.

All of this is pure speculation, but I can't wait to see how this plays out. This is genuinely shocking and exciting news from every possible perspective (business, filmmaking, comics, etc).

Scott Mendelson

Follow Scott Mendelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ScottMendelson

Comments

[getoffthecross]

I once attended a panel discussion with Neil Gaiman (author of the Sandman series, as well as recent films like Stardust and Coraline), and someone asked him if DC (owned by Warner Bros.) ever censored his work. He said the only time they came close to seriously editing his content was during a story arc involving a serialkiller convention. He said the character would work up the nerve to buy porn and mast.urbate until that wasn't enough and then he would seek out a victim. Karen Berger, the fantastic editor of all things Vertigo, called and asked him to water-down the content. When he asked why, Ms. Berger replied, "Because no one mastu.rbates in the DC universe." To which Gaiman responded, "Which is why they all dress up in silly outfits and clobber each other over the head so much."

I see very similar scenerios playing out with Disney in control of Marvel. I hope I'm wrong.

[Stewart Moore]

The Incredible Duck & Wolvermous­e...that's where this is going. http://wineink.blogspot.com/

[Winning09]

Let's try this again ...

I don't quite get this deal.

Are not most of the major characters already spoken for by others, both in movies and theme parks?

[BlackJAC]

Hollywood's supremely weird about all this. Case in point: CBS is owned by Paramount yet broadcasts THE MENTALIST, a Warner Brothers property.

[JustThisGuy]

If disney is smart, they will push marvel to put out more and more experamental titles, knowing they may take a loss on comic sales vs. production costs, as an incubator for potential characters and stories to develop into films.

(Joss Whedon currently writes runaways, I'd like to see him run its adaptation to live TV, live film, or pixar)

[rjmiller]

This was my immediate reaction when I first heard about this yesterday: Is Focus on the Family going to be able to influence Marvel properties the way they were able to block Miramax releases?

I would hazard a solid "Yes." Despite the fact that publicity about "controversy" brought by the Christian right tends to increase film and music revenue, Disney has historically capitulated. They think that the long-term damage done to their child-friendly reputation would be worse than throwing away potential revenues from films like "Fahrenheit 9/11" or "Dogma," despite the seemingly obvious fact that no amount of proselytizing is going to stop kids from wanting to watch "Hannah Montana" or go to Disneyworld.

[BassMonk]

Too bad. I liked Marvel, but Disney will destroy them.

[Winning09]

Not really, since the big characters are already taken.

This deal is weird. Maybe I should do a deal with Disney.

[ClosedEyesOpenMInd]

It'll be interesting, not doubt...

[BlackJAC]

Any potential Focus On The Family complaints won't be anything new. Comic books went through a similar haranguing in the '50s in the form of SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT by Frederic Wertheim, with stuff like implied pederasty between Batman and Robin.

[Scott Mendelson - Huffpost Blogger]

Fair enough, but if you recall that scandal nearly killed the comic industry and more or less neutered comic books up until the mid-1960s.

[BlackJAC]

That was all before the fanboys. Focus On The Family's input will count much less than Comic-Con's in any project. You saw how they reacted to Joel Schumacher's take on Batman, and that had Bob Kane's approval in the first place.