BREAKING: DISNEY BUYS MARVEL
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I am not joking. From the New York Times about a minute ago:
Walt Disney Company said Monday it has agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment, the storied comic book company that owns the rights to such popular characters as Spider-Man and and the Fantastic Four, in a cash and stock deal it valued at $4 billion. The deal comes more than 10 years after Marvel was at the center of a bruising and highly public takeover battle between two feisty financiers.
Shareholders at Marvel will need to approve the transaction, which boards of directors at both companies have already approved.
“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation,” Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said in a statement announcing the deal.
“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.”
Holy fuck. I don’t have any snark, any wiseass comments about this. Can this possibly be a good thing for Marvel fans? Surely Disney is business-savvy to let Marvel work as is, right? But doesn’t this — at the very least — mean that all the corporate company bullshit that keeps DC/Warner Bros. tied-up from achieving anything with their characters is going to happen at Marvel? I don’t know, guys. I just don’t know.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.