THE MOUSE OF IDEAS!
Because I was both the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel as well as one of the two founding editors of Disney Adventures Magazine, I've already gotten numerous phone calls, including one from Forbes Magazine, asking what I think about Disney buying Marvel. The easy answer is - nobody knows. Certainly I don't.
First, the theme parks. As almost everyone knows, Universal's Islands of Adventure park in Florida has a huge Marvel land complete with Marvel stores, rides, attractions and characters. Their Spider-Man attraction is arguably the best theme park ride anywhere. None of us knows how long their contract is for: Is it short term, long term or even perpetual? Without that knowledge we don't know if the Marvel land, and the characters can move from Universal over to Disney Parks. But eventually something is going to happen there; I can't imagine Disney wanting to make things easy for Universal.
Second, the movies. We know Marvel has re-acquired some of their characters, but not all. Do we know how much longer Sony has Spider-Man or 20th Century Fox has X-Men? We certainly know both of those companies are planning new Marvel movies. Disney may be content with getting their percentages or they may want it outright, but we have no idea how long any of those contracts are for, either. I'd venture to guess no matter where the movies wind up, they will probably maintain the same level of quality. As Pirates of the Caribbean has certainly proven, Disney can do solid action films.
Third, there's television. That's actually one of the places I think we can expect to see Marvel material appear. Disney has not been able to put together as successful a boy's network as they have with girls. There has been no boy equivalent to either Hannah Montana or Secret Life of An American Girl. Their current boy's network, which is supposed to have adventure shows, instead has primarily boy oriented sitcoms, but I personally don't believe boys care about those kind of shows the way girls do. Marvel would fit in very well here, providing they get back their contracts from the various networks that currently hold them. Before Disney spent 4 billion dollars, I'm certain they investigated all the properties down to the nth degree. Last time I spent 4 bil, I certainly did.
Publishing. Well, that's the big one, isn't it? At least for us. Actually, only for us. The big ones in reality are movies, TV and video games. One major video game hit can make more money than 95% of all movies. But let's talk comics. What division will that fall under? Publishing? Movies? Consumer Products? Something else? What happens to Marvel Comics will depend on which Disney company it falls under and as of 1:30PM, I don't know the answer to that.
The first question I've been asked is whether they will move Marvel out west. I think there are people out here who are jumping up and down praying for that to happen. While that's always a possibility, off the cuff I would tend to doubt it. The reason I was only with Disney Adventures for 4 1/2 years is that they moved their publishing from LA to New York and I wasn't willing to move back East with them. Then, a few years back, they moved some of that to either White Plains, Mass or Vermont, I forget which right now and have no idea if they've moved elsewhere since. I can almost say with 100% certainty, that they would not move Marvel to the Disney lot. Hell, even Disney Adventures was off lot. Disney TV and direct-to-DVD is not on the lot, either. It's too expensive to be located there. I would assume they'd leave Marvel where it is, although a year or three from now someone could decide to incorporate it into their division and move it to Rhode Island, for all we know. Although I doubt it. Again, it all depends which division Marvel will fall under and who is in charge and how much they want to control Marvel.
Disney can certainly help Marvel in terms of distribution, awareness and sales. They can get Marvel Comics into the parks and over the net better than Marvel can. Disney's Internet presence is much greater than Marvel's. They have resources Marvel does not, and I expect in a year or two we'll start seeing the results of the sale. I think Disney will be a major plus on that side.
In the meantime, I assume they will leave the company as is, at least until they have an idea what they're doing with it. As far as the comics go, hopefully, they will leave Joe Quesada and company where they are and not interfere; they've creatively improved the Marvel Comics. Based on most of their Marvel Studios movies, they seem to have good people there, too. I'm not completely sure it was a wise purchase, but Disney is in the branding/franchise business and the Marvel brand is one of the largest in the world. Of course, everything will change if the Marvel characters fail at whatever Disney has planned.
I have to say I loved working at Disney Adventures. Had they not moved, I would have stayed with them until the magazine was finally cancelled less than a year ago. My wife, Noel, was the Associate Producer of the Tinkerbell direct to DVD for Disney and loved her time there as well. Although you may hear horror stories, it is actually a wonderful place to work. But they don't always know the businesses outside their core business. I hope whoever they put in charge of Marvel knows and understands Marvel. It is very different from Mickey and company, and I'm not talking editorially.
But whatever happens, the comics world has been rocked. As for where it will go... we'll cross out fingers and see.
Labels: Mouse of Ideas
posted by Marv @ 12:44 PM
11 Comments
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11 Comments:
Interesting insider perspective, Marv. I also worked for Marvel AND Disney Adventures. I'm hoping this is a good move for Marvel as I have liked the direction they have been going as of late.
Real nice insight, Marv! I'm not really into the whole Disney concept, in fact, it turns my stomach a little, but let's see how it turns out.
There's a lot of people out there who do believe Disney is the core of everything evil. And I'm not joking.
Comics, Disney is a good company and I loved working there. But like all companies it has problems. But I have to say they probably treated their people better than most. It's just everyone wants them to be sweet as Mickey Mouse, but you can't be. They are good, though and hardly evil. And I have worked for evil companies.
I will miss the DC/Marvel crossovers.
An innocence has been lost today. It's like a marriage of two people who make you sick of their love together. This is one marriage I disapprove of.
In some ways, I'd say Marvel's comic publishing really is "the big one" (and not just for us relatively few remaining floppy fans), because it's the seed bed for everything else. It's the heart, soul, and street cred for the whole licensing/merchandising operation. Even on a purely practical level, Marvel's comics continue to be a very productive, huge-bang-for-the-buck creative R&D division, pouring out a huge stream of concepts, characters, graphics, storylines, storyboards, publicity, free advertising, etc. The pure draft from this fountainhead then gets endlessly repackaged in watered-down form as films, TV, animation, games, toys, lunchbox stickers, and so on. If Disney doesn't mess with the comics, this is going to turn out okay. If not, not.
Thanks for sharing your take on this momentous event, Marv!
When the SEC eventually OKs this sale (which I think they will), it'll be interesting to see how fast or slow Disney moves to fold Marvel into the company.
Tone, why would you think Disney buying Marvel would be worse than it's current owners? I haven't worked at Marvel for many, many years, but while I was there they were owned by about 6 different companies. Frankly, Disney is the one creative company that has bought it and that could be very, very good indeed. There's no innocence lost. Disney is in the creative business, does it's job exceedingly well, and can bring lots of possibilities to Marvel. I remember one owner, back in the early 70s, who nearly destroyed it. And remember, two owners ago the company almost went bankrupt. That won't happen here.
Marv,
Quick question that you probably can't answer, but since you worked for both...
When you were working for Disney Adventures, were they okay with outside work/creator owned work/etc.? So much is up in the air obviously, but I've heard horror stories about Disney owning all ideas created while under Disney contract and what not so I'm wondering if they'd let a freelancer work for both Marvel and DC at the same time (or for Marvel and on various outside animated projects like someone like Dwayne McDuffie did a couple of years back)or if they'd allow outside creator-owned work either through Marvel's ICON line or through another company.
That's one of the six or seven things that have me most curious here.
Thanks,
Matt
Two comments, one historical, one where I'm *ahem* taking the mickey...
The historical: I haven't seen anywhere mentioned the sheer symmetry of this deal, whereby the old animation rivals Warner Bros and Disney now own the old comics rivals DC and Marvel. Plus, in cultural terms, isn't the nearest contemporary equivalent to Uncle Walt good ol' Smilin' Stan?
Second: does this make Marvel a Mickey Mouse company?
We had MANY creator-owned projects in Disney Adventures. It was something as editor I asked for and got. That is not a concern. People not on staff work at many different companies while working at Disney, so that's not a problem, either. Unless you either are on staff or have signed an exclusive, no company owns you. They are needless concerns. Frankly, it was worse under one particular Marvel editor when the company was owned by 4 owners ago. That editor (not the company) wouldn't let his people play poker games with DC folk. In other words, don't worry about Disney. They are a really good company to work for and their benefits to their employees are among the best anywhere. As I said, I would not have left had their publishing division - which I worked for - stayed in LA.
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