Disney owns Marvel now. Every asset Marvel owned previous...including its contract rights with Sony...now are the property of Disney. For the price of $4 billion. Yes, Disney can continue to license out Marvel however it wishes. But I'm guessing Disney will definitely be incorporating Marvel characters at their Studios theme park. Yes, Disney can "stifle" or "not stifle" Marvel's creativity...because Marvel is OWNED by Disney. They may keep the Marvel brand name...guessing they will, as they have with Pixar. But there is no independent Marvel...it's owned by Disney. Maybe a better way to say it is: Marvel's creativity now belongs to Disney...it's Disney's creativity now.
So they could cancel comics completely if they saw fit? Sony no longer has the creative lead in the Spiderman series that it is about to re-enter?
My guess is the Imagineers will equal or top it. That Spidey ride at Universal is pushing 10 years or so now. New technology, I'm guessing they can improve upon it.
I don't know what the contracts with Sony look like. Whatever those say, they're still in force...whatever rights they entitled Marvel to, now Disney is entitled to. And yes, Marvel could never authorize the use of Spider-Man (for instance) ever again...in anything...anywhere....beyond whatever licenses already exist. But once those expire, it could be completely gone. But it won't be. They didn't pay $4 billion to not use the intellectual property they bought.
That Spidey ride was one of my favorite things in the entire park. The Hulk is not my bag, but a lot of people love it too. It will undoubtedly suck when they have to blow those up. Losing the Spider-Man ride will make getting rid of "Back to the Future:The Ride" seem like a REALLY bad idea.
Universal is getting the whole Harry Potter theme park thingie. Disney has been seeking a way to counter that....I've been waiting for something big, honestly, and it came today. By the way....I won on the motion to add parties to that case I was telling you about in front of the courthouse the other day...woo freaking hoo.
I'm pretty sure that Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man no matter who owns Disney. Marvel sold off the rights to most of it's great properties when it's comic business was in the tank 10 years ago. Other properties were the X-Men and Fantastic Four (Fox). Marvel still owned the rights to the Hulk and the Avengers members, so formed it's own studio to make those movies (Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor).
for a set number of movies. it started out with a deal for 3 movies...i think they've already extended to 4. but it's not on forever. they don't own spiderman movie rights from here on forever.
They're already planning 5 and 6 so there must be something about making movies that perpetuates their ownership of the film rights. Same goes with the X-Men and associated characters at Fox apparently. As for the theme parks, Universal is asserting that they believe there will be no issues. Deadlinehollywooddaily is a great industry blog that has lots of updates on this: http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/shocker-disney-buying-marvel/ It looks like from their perspective, whatever characters they've used they get to keep using as long as they want. I'm sure there will be some court battles over this. I think there may be some compromise where Marvel Island will stay and Disney will get to use the characters in their parks as well as I assume that would make everybody happy plus I doubt anybody goes to either theme park specifically to see Marvel characters.
Touchstone back in the day, ESPN/ABC Sports, Pixar, Miramax and Marvel. I don't know why I keep forgetting how large, well-diversified and ball-bustingly shrewd Disney really is (as the Weinsteins and Mike Ovitz can surely attest).
You're joking but there is a Spiderman musical in development. It's going to be directed by Julie Taymor (The Lion King) with music by U2.
Yeah, I don't know what those contracts with Universal look like. But I can't imagine they stretch on and on and on for however long Universal would like.
