In Depth
Disney is Buying Marvel for $4 Billion: Hannah Montana and the Wizards of Waverly Place, Meet Your New Cousins That All the Boys Love—Spider-Man, Iron Man and the X-Men
The Walt Disney Co. announced today that it is acquiring Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion--to be paid for with 60% in cash and 40% in stock .
With a stable that includes Spider-Man, the X-Men and Iron Man, among many others, the acquisition fills a gap for Disney--popular characters that appeal to boys.
All of the current deals that Marvel has with other studios--Twentieth Century Fox has the "x-Men" franchise, for example --will stay in place at least until they expire.
Disney also hopes to exploit the characters with rides and such at its theme park, and in various other consumer products.
Another popular group of comic-book characters--DC, which includes Batman and Superman--has long been part rival media conglomerate Time Warner.
For the New York Times' news report of the deal, click here.
--Chuck Ross


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Daniel Escurel Occeño
Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment? My action movies will look goofy. When I saw the movie Terminator 2, I was excited because I knew Hollywood had the technology to do Marvel Comics superheroes movies to capture the drawings of the comic books.
In the past Marvel movies looked fake and unrealistic insulting the intelligence of dreamers showing a movie like Bill Bixby turning into Lou Ferrigno instead of the Incredible Hulk or Spiderman using rope instead of a people size spider webbing.
The Terminator movie was a turn off. I really did not want to see Arnold walking around naked. But the Liquid Metal Man was a real super villan in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the way Hollywood made the movie was exciting to the imagination. I was writing that Terminator 2 should be the model for STAN LEE to do blockbuster movies with Spiderman, the Hulk, Iron Man, X Men, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers. But Nick Fury (Agent of Shield) should stay a white guy like the Kingpin in Daredevil.
Do Luke Cage (Hero for Hire) before he assumed another Power Man if you want Black kids going to the movie, but without the 1970s stereotype ghetto talk. Surely the black ops military families are not that intimidating. So what if they were covert Vietnam Veterans related to former American Presidents.
Imagine Disney adding their conception to the Marvel drama. Touchtone Pictures might be able to handle the storyline, but capture and keep the realistic fantasy of the drawings in the Marvel Comics comic books but not with the four finger cartoon, even if I love Minnie Mouse.
Daniel Escurel Occeno
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