Well, I'm back from a looong weekend which saw my brother Matt make the big move from the east coast to LA. My brother and my dad flew in on Wednesday night, and we spent the weekend helping my brother get settled into his new place (conveniently located down the street from my apartment in Burbank). Trips were made to Target, Ikea, car dealerships, etc., and ultimately my brother's apartment, which he is sharing with his college friend Adam, is coming along fairly nicely. But yeah, it was a fairly exhausting couple of days, especially coming right off of Tuesday's epic Green Day concert ... and I am already looking forward to next weekend so that I can get a chance to relax and take a breath.
- Speaking of taking a deep breath, that's exactly what Marvel EIC Joe Quesada asked shocked fans to do after hearing about this morning's jaw-dropping announcement: Disney has bought Marvel.
Wow, this one is huge, and when I first heard this I had the same concerns as everyone else. Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind for a Marvel fan is will the new corporate parent have a Big Brother-like effect on the House of Ideas? Will creativity be stifled? Will stricter standards and practices be enforced to encourage more family-friendly material? Will Wolverine be de-clawed, and The Punisher erased from existence by the magic of Mickey's wand?
I am pretty confident that such concerns remain baseless, especially in the near-term. In fact, if anything, the Marvel purchase is Disney's way of trying to broaden its appeal to the young male market. Bob Iger himself said as much in today's round of press interviews. So yeah, I think this is actually Disney's attempt to get a bit edgier, and not the other way around. Also, it's going to be a while before this deal fully plays out in a big way. Most of Marvel's biggest properties are currently tied-up with other film studios. Spiderman is with Sony, X-Men and Fantastic Four with Fox, The Hulk with Universal. Meanwhile, Paramount has a long-term distribution deal for Marvel Studios' films that includes Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers. That said, Marvel money is now in turn Disney money, and with this slate of films, there is A LOT of money to be made.
That said, who knows what Marvel and Disney might cook up behind closed doors? There's already been talk of Marvel and Pixar having preliminary creative conversations. And Marvel-based programming is already a staple of the Disney XD network. Sure, it would be a while before the Incredibles' team could tackle a full-fledged CGI Fantastic Four, but who's to say that we couldn't see John Lassettar and co. craft a CGI journey to the Savage Lands starring Ka-zar? A new animated Howard The Duck movie? Doubtful, but you can't help but imagine the possibilities. I'm already dreaming up an animatronic Stan Lee that greets visitors at the gates of Disneyland -- "Welcome, True Believers!". Man, do you think Stan the Man ever envisioned that his characters would one day be owned by the House of Mouse?
Ultimately, this takeover to me is a huge indicator of the future of the media business. Because in this day and age of multimedia franchises and increasingly niche media markets, there are two things that are important for a company's success.
One is IP - and it's amazing to think of the sheer number of characters and concepts that are now part of the Disney/Marvel roster. And that's one reason why I do feel somewhat optimistic that the deal will be beneficial to the comic book industry. Marvel Entertainment needs Marvel Comics as it's R&D department of sorts, and by extension so does Disney. All you need to do is look at movies and TV these days. It's all remakes, remakes, remakes. And sequels. Comic books are one of the few areas where new ideas can emerge from. And as the last couple of years have proven, today's cult-favorite comic book can be tomorrow's big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. Hopefully, Disneys multimedia prowess, its retail presence, and its marketing muscle can help bolster the comic book industry. As I was saying though, IP is king in this day and age - it's what separates a Marvel or a Disney from the pack, and it's those beloved characters - the ones that can transition from TV to movies to the web to theme parks to comics to candy bars -that will be the currency of the entertainment industry going forward.
The second item is multimedia reach, and if you think about it, Disney is in many ways the original multimedia entertainment company. Right from the beginning, their characters were leveraged in movies, TV, comic books, and theme parks. They have done for sixty years what others are just now figuring out, and that's why Disney has always been in a great position to be a power player in the digital age. Disney is a multimedia brand. Most other entertainment companies are not. NBC and CBS are TV brands. Paramount and Universal are movie brands. Disney has always been the one that is a true brand name that can work across all different media. And increasingly, so is Marvel. This is where Marvel has excelled in the last couple of years where DC has not - they've gotten the Marvel name out there in movies the same way they have in comics. DC and Warner Bros. have never created a true DC Comics film studio. I guarantee you, more people associate Spiderman or Iron Man with Marvel than they do Batman and The Dark Knight with DC. But the point is, Disney and Marvel have been two of the strongest multimedia brands of the last several years - it makes sense that they combine forces, and it also should serve as a wake up call to the old-media competition. I mean, both Disney and Marvel are out there in theme parks, comics, videogames, digital media. This is the new model to succeed in entertainment. You need idea generation. To that end, you can bet that another comic book publisher or two will be snatched up soon. You also need a true digital presence. Videogames are bigger now than movies or TV. If you don't have an in-house videogame studio or publishing wing or presence, you are not going to make it in the new digital world. I think a huge mistake of old-media is that they've been slow to get on this train. You can't just be a movie or TV studio anymore. TV especially is a business model that is losing huge traction to gaming. If you're not where the action is, you're missing out. It's evolve or die, and Marvel and Disney have done the evolution.
So, I do think this *could* be a good thing. Hopefully, it will force the competition to step up their game. Hopefully, it will mean greater exposure for Marvel comics and characters. And hopefully, it could lead to at least a couple of the kinds of cross-company "dream projects" that we'd all love to see. But mark my words, this is definitely a sign of things to come in the world of entertainment.
- Coming up next: a long-time-coming review of PRISON BREAK: THE FINAL BREAK!
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