The big story this day was Disney buying Marvel, the legendary comic book company. Many people were surprised, many people were upset and others don't know what to expect. I'm going on the optimistic end and say this is going to be a terrific time ahead of us. Many of you are wondering what will come from this. I can only imagine and that's what I'm going to tell you. First of all I'd like to mention that Marvel has 5000 characters under their banner. Out of those 5000 only about 20 of them are wide/worldly known in the mainstream world. Here are my thoughts.
Television shows: This might seem like a route not quick to the mind and people will think that this is a terrible idea. Permit me to take you back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when every September Disney released a new syndicated cartoon. The titles, you might remember, were Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, Talespin, Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers and Goof Troop just to name a few. Now lets come back to today and put shows like that on the air again under the Disney banner. I purchased Volume 1 of Talespin not to long ago and was surprised with how violent it was for a kids/Disney cartoon, especially by todays PC standards. The head of the Animation program and Pixar founder John Lasseter was happy and it was stated he got excited very quickly. If these Saturday morning/after school cartoons start again I think we can see them as early as 2011. This a prediction, not a confirmation of this on the date.
Shows on ABC prime time schedule could happen as well. Look at what Disney did with Lost, yes that is a show released by ABC Studios. If you think the show is watered down to fit Disney's image than you have never watched the show. Also with Lost on their last season and ABC is trying hard this season to find a replacement for the show, i.e. Flash Forward and the V reboot. I wouldn't be surprised if Stephen McPherson, ABC President, finds a property he can't wait to get his hands on. If this is the case there could be Marvel primetime show as early as Premiere week in 2010. It doesn't take long for a television show to get on the air unlike the big screen.
Obviously the movie industry will be heavily impacted with all these properties. Now Paramount still has the rights to make and release Thor, Captain America, The Avengers and Iron Man 2 & 3. Sony still has the hot Spider-Man franchise, Ghost Rider, Luke Cage and a solo Venom movie. Fox has the X-Men property, Daredevil and Fantastic Four. Funny enough on within 24 hours of the Disney/Marvel announcement 20th Century Fox decided to "reboot" the Fantastic Four films. Universal Pictures also has The Incredible Hulk and supposedly Sub-Mariner. No more details are known yet on what they are doing with the reboot but we should find out in time. If you're afraid that Disney will water down these dark titles then you forget that Disney also owns Touchstone Pictures, released The Rock, Signs, Enemy of the Stare, and Miramax Films, released Gangs of New York, Pulp Fiction, No Country For Old Men. If you're still not satisfied then you'll just have to wait and see for yourself. Now it's unknown what will come to the big screen first but my prediction is that something will be put on their film slate by 2013 maybe 2012 depending if it gets put on the fast track, excuse pun Disney Park goers.
Since I mentioned it the parks will be heavily marketing the Marvel characters. Getting your picture taken with them, selling merchandise with the Marvel crew and maybe make some rides or even their own section in a park. My guess would be they would add something for them at the Hollywood Studio, that's the name the Studios is going by right now. I'm going to say something like that will happen in the next 10-15 years. The reason for the long span is because I don't know if they'll build a new foundation or remodel a building already existing.
If you're worried about the comic books getting watered down I don't think there will be any problem with that. I don't think Disney really cares about the actual comic books but are instead more focused on marketing and exploiting them to the max.
Only time will tell what will come from this big development. One last thing worth mentioning about Disney themselves is they just gave a release date for Tron Legacy. The date is December 17, 2010. It currently shares a release date with The Smurfs, Yogi Bear and Seth Rogen's The Green Hornet. The Smurfs will definitely move because Sony is releasing that and The Green Hornet. Which one will move first, we'll just have to wait and see.
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