Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:MVL) in a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today.
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"We believe that adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation," Iger said.
"Disney is the perfect home for Marvel's fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses," said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel's Chief Executive Officer. "This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney's tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world."
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5,000 Marvel characters. Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney's global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel’s properties.
Read more at https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-to-acquire-marvel-entertainment/
The question now is how much is left in Marvel for Disney to exploit? And what will happen once Marvel movies don't reliably make a profit? They might bury the corpse, or dismember it and sell it for parts.
I don't think Disney is known for selling off IPs. So that will probably be unlikely. Bury is more likely and dig that corpse back up once it's nostalgic.
Marvel has a catalogue of 85 years, and is continuously producing new comics.
If Disney at some point decides that the profit isn't there anymore, it definitely is a question. However they still produce new classic Disney (Ducks, etc.) comics even though they stopped doing these movies ages ago. So I'd think they'd keep Marvel comics running.