It’s just been announced that the Walt Disney Company has bought Marvel Entertainment for about $4 billion dollars. What a bargain!

Marvel have been owned by Warner Bros. for a long time so this joint ownership with Disney will allow Marvel more freedom to plan several movies a year. More comic book movies to come then!
The details of the deal have not yet been made public, and have to be confirmed under an antitrust review and by Marvel’s shareholders, but there could be an eventual end to the deals with multiple studios that Marvel has made in the past.

It will give Disney ownership rights to more than 5,000 Marvel characters, including Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, Thor and the X-Men. However the studios that Marvel already has existing partnerships with (Sony for Spider-Man, Paramount for Iron Man, Thor and The Avengers) are staying in place until their contracts run out. It does mean that Disney will be distributing Marvel movies in the future – and giving the company its full marketing weight, similar to the DC/Warners deal.

And in a conference call to announce the big signing, Disney president Robert Iger mentioned that Marvel honchos had had excitable early meetings with John Lasseter (Pixar king – Toy Story, Monsters Inc etc.), which might point to Pixar/Marvel collaborations down the line. Just imagine how amazing that would be!