Disney buys Marvel for $4 Billion (& Mickey/Marvel Mashup Art)

(Scroll below to see the Mickey/Marvel mashup art)

So Disney buys Marvel for $4 billion, a wise but interesting move. It doesn't look like anyone will join Disney's board or other businesses from Marvel (Iger joined from the ABC merger, Steve Jobs joined the board from the Pixar merger, and Lasseter took a CCO position from the Pixar merger).


This is coming off Disney kicking out Eisner and promoting Iger to the top spot. Iger has been shrewd and wise, betting big where it matters instead of trying to invest in sports and low-quality video releases like Eisner did.

(1) He got Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back under the Disney umbrella (Walt's first character; they own him now but they haven't done anything with him).

(2) He bought Pixar animation, put Steve Jobs on the Disney board, and put Lasseter in charge of animation and the theme parks (the theme parks and DVD animations improved immediately, Disney started making great short films again, and the animated feature films is more of a slow-moving improvement; the upcoming "Princess and the Frog" and "Rapunzel" are the first true results of the change).

(3) He bought the Muppets from Jim Henson, pulling them away from their Sony partnership. Another Muppets film is on its way, and you'll run into the Muppets at Disney parks.

(4) He bought the Fox Family Channel, and with it he bought the Fox Kids lineup, including the Power Rangers! (Note that he did this with Eisner back when Eisner was the CEO. Still tue though.) The only cross-over with the Power Rangers is that you can now see the Power Rangers in Disney theme parks (usually in the movie parks, like the Disney Hollywood Studios).

(5) And now he just bought Marvel. Wow. This is obviously a drive to get Disney to appeal more to boys (similar to the success of Incredibles and Cars, why Disney bought the Power Rangers, and why Cars is getting a sequel).

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So that brings up all sorts of questions...

1 - Is Disney going to slowly let its Marvel film licenses end in order to get the future films under their own studio?

2 - Is Disney going to bring the Marvel characters to its theme parks? YES - but the question is how is this possible when their Marvel characters are in Universal parks. Are they going to wait until the licenses expire and then move them over? So Disney can pull Marvel out of the Universal deal, but that still means that you'll see Marvel attractions at Universal Studios, but Universal can't update those attractions (which means they'll probably eventually get dropped).

3 - Is Disney going to start making Marvel films with their own studios? Will this affect movie crossovers? For example, X-Men films are tied up with Fox/News, Spider-man is tied up Sony, and then Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Avengers are all tied up with Paramount (Marvel tied up a lot of characters with one studio in order to pull off a massive crossover).

4 - Does this mean that once Disney gets Marvel out of those movie deals that they'll be able to do a massive Marvel Universe crossover film series?

5 - Will Lasseter oversee the Marvel studio, or will Avi Arad and the studio heads report directly to Disney CEO Bob Iger?

6 - Will Disney characters be added to Marvel comics, the Marvel universe, and Marvel games? For example, will the Incredibles show up in a Marvel game? In the comics, will Spider-man run into Donald Duck or Jack Sparrow or... wait for it... the Power Rangers?

7 - Marvel currently has a deal to build its own theme park in Dubai. Will Disney continue that? Will Disney build Marvel-only theme parks and add them to existing resorts (like Disney World)? After all, Marvel owns about 5,000 characters. To do them justice and show off a decent amount of them (appearances, brands, merchandise, etc.), Disney would need a dedicated park.

- The Emperor

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Mickey mashup art is below.

Go here for mashup art for:

• Donald Duck

Mickey/Marvel Mashup Art

Mickey and Venom:





Mickey and Wolverine:









Mickey and Spider-man:












Mickey and Iron Man:





Mickey and Captain America:




Mickey and Deadpool:

Mickey and Galactus:






Enjoy!

- TAE