…And the winner of over 5,000 Marvel characters is…Disney!
Yes, Mickey, Minnie and Donald have some new neighbors coming, but not immediately.
Disney has purchased Marvel for a whopping $4 BILLION! Now the fun begins. Since many of the famous Marvel characters have been hanging-out at other studio and at other theme parks it’s going to take some time to sort this whole thing out.
For example, “Iron Man 2” will apparently still be owned by Paramount, which still has a five movie deal with Marvel. Paramount is expecting to be working with Marvel AND Disney for some time.
Also, Universal made “The Incredible Hulk”, 20th Century Fox produced “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four” and Columbia Pictures was involved in the “Spider-Man” trilogy. “Spider-Man 4” is expected to be released in May 2011 as a Sony/Marvel production.
We do know that Universal’s Florida attraction “Marvel Super Hero Island” will continue to operate, at least until the current contract runs out. But it sounds like you could now see Spidey at Disneyland, Disneyworld and the Universal Studio parks.
I’m not in love with this purchase by Disney. I understand that they needed characters to go after the young boy audience, but maybe it would have been better to create some of their own then buying already famous characters from Marvel. I never dreamed that Goofy and Wolverine would be in the same family.
Hopefully Disney will still create new stories and characters for their young (and old), male audience and not just rely on The Hulk and all the other Marvel products they spent all that money for. And, hopefully, this doesn’t effect the great work that Pixar continues to do.